A Report on the First International Gathering of The EARTH Project

Edited by Judith Marcuse and Diana Bulley with the assistance of Richard Marcuse

Produced by Judith Marcuse Projects , B.C., www.dancearts.bc.ca www.earthproject.ca Table of Contents

From the Delegates ...... 3

Introduction ...... 4

The Sessions...... 6

Closing Session...... 6

Arts Workshops...... 7

Keynote Presentations ...... 19

Panels and Discussions ...... 21

Environmental and Social Justice Workshops ...... 25

Show and Tells ...... 30

Films Presented ...... 32

Open Space Afternoon...... 33

A Sampling of Letters from Delegates ...... 37

Acknowledgements ...... 39

Appendices

Appendix 1: Facilitator Biographies ...... 40

Appendix 2: Exchanges Youth Biographies ...... 46

2 I The EARTH From the Delegates...

It wasn’t that I wasn’t on top of things before, just that I wanted to jump off the plane and swim to Victoria to I think I was bogged down and insular and had visit everyone there, or fly to the east coast to eat a forgotten that there were other people pursuing the fish head and get initiated as a Newfie and eat all of same goals as I, with as much passion and your lobsters, or bike to the UK and learn about forum commitment. Somehow, knowing that makes it easier, theatre or go down to the States and vote or canoe kind of like I can see above the canopy of trees and I from Hudson’s Bay to Nunavut or stay in Vancouver can breathe more freely. and buy a café mocha to go and stand on the picket Brigid Schutz, lines dancing and singing and yelling my ass off. But instead, with tears welling in my eyes, I move away The conference has provided me with an amazing and from a place in which I’ve only spent a brief moment varied insight into how arts can provide the creative of my life but that has felt more like home than any space to explore and deal with key issues facing young place ever did. All is not lost, however, because I am people in their localities. Skinder Hundal, U.K. returning to Winnipeg with something that I have not been able to feel for a while. Hope. After meeting so Whether from starry-eyed conversations on the deck of many extraordinary people who were so amazingly a cruise-ship, to new bonds of friendship forged across passionate and focused in healing the world we share, countries and continents, cross-cultural dance lessons, I would be foolish not to have hope for our future. the sharing of schools of thought and practice, a life- Loc Lu, Canada (youth delegate) long commitment to the arts, a belief in the power and possibility of social change… in truth the promise and Because of this symposium, my relationship to art, my unapologetic idealism of so many of the people I came views on my place in society, and my long-term life in contact with were fierce and daring. Koby Rogers goals have all changed or – perhaps more accurately – Hall, Canada (youth delegate) been clarified greatly. I had previously toyed with the idea of going back to the – my country of How has my life been changed? I look at my world birth and citizenship – and setting up an art school...or through a different lens now. I think about what I’m something vague like that, at least. Now I know that I doing, what I’m buying, what I’m eating. I feel want to and can use performing arts to work with empowered – that my small efforts are in tandem with communities in distress to give people tools they can hundreds and thousands of others around the world. wield to empower themselves. Diego Maranan, That somehow, my small actions will create long-term Philippines/Canada (youth delegate) impacts somewhere way down the line. I am involved in creating the kind of world that I want to live in, that This was one of the most provocative and well- my children will live in. And I can spread these planned conferences that I have ever attended. messages to those around me – from my family, Nicholas Rowe, West Bank friends, to the people I meet on the street. Shannon Butters, Canada (youth delegate) This is the beginning of a new journey, I know, full of adventure, of sharing, of creation. Diego Samper, /Canada

The EARTH Symposium I 3 Introduction By Judith Marcuse, LL.D. Artistic Producer, Judith Marcuse Projects

n the spring of 2004, from April 28 to May 2, over 300 and . Some of the performance pieces, films artists, activists and youth from across Canada and and exhibitions arising from all this work will be brought Iaround the world gathered in Vancouver, B.C., to to Canada in 2006 as part of The EARTH Project . participate in The EARTH Symposium: Breaking New Ground, a conference organized by DanceArts Vancouver, Our website, www.earthproject.ca, continues to be an now re-named Judith Marcuse Projects. A UNESCO- active component of the Project. Using the website’s designated event, produced in collaboration with Simon Forum, delegates and new participants are keeping the Fraser University and part of the longer-term EARTH dialogue alive. In January 2005, a web-streaming event Project, these five days of activities explored the many will bring us together to share the work we are doing. ways in which the arts are being used in communities A documentary film about The EARTH Project is in around the globe as tools for social change, particularly in development. Over 35 hours of video footage has already work with youth. captured many of the events of the Symposium. A wide range of hands-on dance, theatre, visual and Filmmakers Jessica Fraser and Scott Smith will be media arts, music and writing workshops, 93 in total, travelling to EARTH Partners’ home bases in six countries were presented by artists and activists from 21 countries, to document the extraordinary work that is taking place all designed to share both the vision and methodologies as part of the project. of their work. Social justice and environmental issues were explored in youth-led workshops that attracted both young and older delegates. Dialogues and panels, informal showings of work, three keynote speakers, an “Open Space” afternoon and a mix of social events were all part of the planned program.

What could not have been planned was the magical synergy and energy that blossomed at the gathering. The diversity of the participants and their expertise and passionate commitment to activism and social change created an explosion of creative thinking and open exchange. As a result, many new international connections have been made, new and renewed energy has been created across generations and borders, and a new community has come into being. Many people have described their experience at the Symposium as life-changing.

The EARTH Project continues. Local EARTH projects, originating in communities in Africa, Asia, , Central and South America and Europe and North America will be created over the next two years. In addition, collaborations have begun between delegates and their organizations in , , the U.S., Canada, the U.K., , Austria, Australia, South Africa,

4 I The EARTH Symposium arts, media arts, music and writing worked with delegates to give them direct experience of their work. At nine show and tell sessions, artists and activists used a variety of media to share the challenges and successes of current or recently-completed projects. We devoted a full afternoon to the unique process of Open Space work. This was a time for delegates to create their own sessions in which to explore ideas and questions that had arisen during their time working together at the Symposium – 26 of these “tailor-made” sessions took place. Three keynote speeches, informal discussion circles, social events, film showings and good food at lunches and dinners helped to round out the program. On registration day, an evening dinner cruise took us around Vancouver’s Burrard A Canadian EARTH stage production will première in Inlet in perfect weather after an on-board First Nations Vancouver in May 2005. Based on two years of Judith welcome. During the conference, the Red Cross held a Marcuse Projects-conducted workshops with hundreds of fundraising event for their travelling medical work in youth aged 15 to 25, this large-scale, multimedia event Colombia and Simon Fraser University’s dance will incorporate the thoughts and feelings of these young department presented an evening concert. people in an accessible, high-production, professional show. Workshops, films and exhibitions will be part of We experienced one very trying set of difficulties. this two-week event. In 2007, the production will tour Obtaining Canadian visas for some of our delegates from Canada. This is the third work in a quartet of major India, Pakistan, and six African countries was works created by Judith Marcuse Projects and follows very problematic. In the end, and despite valiant efforts on the creation of ICE: beyond cool and FIRE…where from many people, only three of these 35 delegates were there’s smoke. allowed into Canada to attend the Symposium. This decision was made despite that fact that most of these Also in Vancouver, in the summer of 2006, the individuals were senior artists, journalists or academics, international EARTH Project Festival will bring people and with international reputations, and despite the fact that their work together once again. Ten days of events in most of them had previously travelled extensively theatres, community centres and other public spaces will abroad. A sign of the times, all of them were men. bring the best of the EARTH work to a general public. Building on the success of the format of the Symposium, I would like to thank all the wonderful people who helped performances will be enhanced by workshops, make Breaking New Ground such a success. These exhibitions and youth-led events. include our very dedicated and expert staff; many committed volunteers; Milton Wong, Chancellor of Simon Future plans are tantalizing and energising, but first, we Fraser University, and our Symposium partners in must look back in order to understand the themes, ideas Continuing Studies and the Wosk Centre for Dialogue of and concerns that emerged at our first gathering in the University; all our financial supporters; and the Vancouver in the spring of 2004. remarkable group of artists, activists and youth who joined us in Vancouver. I urge you read the biographies of We were a remarkably diverse group, almost equally the facilitators and the 25 extraordinary young people we divided amongst men and women, with half of the entire call the “Exchanges Youth,” who were able to attend group under 25 years old. We came from every corner of Breaking New Ground, in part, through the generous Canada, from Nunavut to Newfoundland, from the Yukon financial assistance of the Department of Canadian to Quebec. Some 50 delegates came from abroad, many Heritage and the Vancouver Foundation. of them from countries where issues of social justice and environmental depredation are presently and profoundly Some 117 volunteers helped us out during the five days affecting the lives of their citizens. We welcomed many of the Symposium. Of these, 29 were student writers who First Nations participants whose contributions, rooted documented many of the sessions. Their reports in traditional wisdom, offered us fertile ground for our describing the scheduled sessions, and the other work together. information we are presenting in the following pages, will, I hope, be a useful resource for anyone interested in Breaking New Ground was not a typical conference. The the potent, diverse and often transformative work of 93 sessions took many different forms, all designed to artist/activists and youth who are working for a more just create dialogue, experience of each other’s work, and and sustainable world – as well as for the continuing information- sharing. Ten youth-led workshops explored work of The EARTH Project. central themes of social justice and environmental issues from a wide variety of youth activist perspectives. In 39 Judith Marcuse, Vancouver, B.C., 18 July, 2004 arts disciplines workshops, artists in theatre, dance, visual

The EARTH Symposium I 5 The Sessions

• Joaquin (Jack) Yabut’s “fireflies” appeared in The Closing Session and led the group in an insect takeover of the room. • Ch’aska Anqa Ninawaman taught a traditional song t may seem a bit odd to begin at the end, but this and rain dance from the Quechua people of Peru, description of the delegates’ final hours together will telling the story that provided the context for the Igive, we believe, a sense of the nature of the journey dance. we had taken together. • Michael Sheely taught the game of Equality Tag, a process that soon created chaos and laughter.

A spirit of hope and a sense of renewed energy filled the • Mary Elizabeth Manley’s group showed some of their room. Over a period of several hours, delegates sang, work from her workshop and were joined by others to danced, recited, played games, taught theatre exercises use movement and sound to create poetic reflections and told stories together. It seemed as though no one about water. wanted to leave. • Tony Le Nguyen taught a traditional Vietnamese youth game called Crack, Crack, BOOM! In a fierce Some highlights: competition, groups of three tried to eliminate each • Judith Marcuse thanked all her co-workers (a small other from the game in a series of vocal attacks that team of organisers and more than 100 volunteers) for could be repelled only by shouting out the name of the their hard work and great accomplishments. She then fictional “city” of the attackers and doing a rigorous opened the session to participants by inviting them to ducking routine, then doing a physical and vocal “re- perform and present work they had done over the loading” routine to prepare to attack others. course of the Symposium. • William Cleveland told the story of the brave journey • David Diamond offered a summary of the outcomes of of a young boy he had worked with and sang a his theatre workshop. The participants assembled and powerful song about darkness and light. animated three of the images that had been created by • Miali-Elise Coley and Trisha Ogina, from the Northern the group. They were soon joined by most of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, dressed in traditional people in the room in a further development of this clothing, talked about the sources and forms of work. The full group then explored another image traditional and contemporary Inuit throat singing and from the workshop (both of these images were about gave us mesmerizing performances of this remarkable work for social justice), creating a very powerful musical form. They then began to dance a traditional moment of recognition for everyone in the room. drum dance, using a large, hand held-drum that soon • Syed Rahman taught us a delightful “condom dance,” was passed on as other people began to join in their used by his organization in Pakistan. He explained that dance. The room filled with music as others joined in the purpose of the dance was to use the body to with more drums, then with a flute, with spoons on identify and recognize the importance of protection glasses and with their voices. and prevention of HIV/AIDS. The dance was created to • After thanks were given to her from the delegates, address the topic in a fun and humorous way…and it Judith Marcuse expressed her delight, thanking worked! We hopped about, singing “yes” and “no” as everyone who had been at the gathering. She we touched different parts of our bodies, eventually encouraged participants to reflect and write about their shouting “yes!” to all when a condom was produced. experiences as a way of sustaining and moving The • Nonhlanhla Ndima from South Africa lead her group EARTH Project forward. She invited everyone to stay of 30 dancers through a joyous, high-energy in touch with each other on the website and expressed movement combination, all based on teaching people her hope that we would all, once again, come together to conserve water.

6 I The EARTH Symposium with our projects and collaborations at the EARTH Festival in 2006. • In an entirely unplanned moment, Breaking New Ground closed with a four-part song about peace, each part coming from a different spiritual tradition. We now turn to descriptions of the individual sessions that took place, mainly at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, with some activities at Simon Fraser’s downtown Harbour Centre campus.

Arts Workshops

Moving Into Dance Mophatong Nonhlanhla Grethel Ndima, South Africa

How can academic education be enhanced with multi- faceted dance experiences? Nonhlanhla Grethel Ndima, from South Africa’s Moving Into Dance Mophatong, gave a high-spirited, hands-on dance experience to 35 participants in a workshop that demonstrated some of the methods used in their unique dance program, called Edudance. eighteen years, the organization has given over 700 First implemented in 1998, Edudance supports learning performances ranging from street plays to epic in a variety of academic subjects, from science and math productions and has dealt with many important issues to history and geography. Ndima described how including military oppression and child marriage. Their Edudance also fosters cultural awareness by exposing work often defies the government, which tends to be children to traditional forms of music and dance. She wary of their outspoken performances. explained how “historically, dance has been part of our Shoaib Iqbal led the group in an afternoon workshop that culture of learning; this new system brings culture back focused on a simple circular theatre form used primarily into learning.” in their street performances. This form has no specific Workshop participants created a “water conservation focal point and no beginning or ending; the audience dance.” Water usage is an important issue in South Africa forms a circle around the action while the performers where there are often serious shortages. The dance was travel between the space inside and outside of the circle. created by incorporating movements associated with This method creates a dynamic theatre experience and water and its use, such as raindrops falling and turning breaks down the barrier between audience and off the tap while teeth-brushing. This fun-to-watch and performer. Lively movement exercises familiarized the fun-to-do dance, performed by exuberant workshop group with working on a 360-degree plane, participants, later roused delegates at the Sunday closing experimenting with energy and fluidity of space. The session. It was easy to see how students would easily importance of deliberate and constant movements when engage with material like this and have fun while learning communicating an action to the audience was in a new way. emphasized. To complete the workshop, participants divided into groups and were given the opportunity to create their own five-minute circle plays to perform for Punjab Lok Rahs Theatre Workshop the rest of the group. Shoaib Iqbal, Pakistan Punjab Lok Rahs is a theatre organization in Lahore, Visual and Performance Art – Nezkayomeh: Pakistan working for social change in areas such as child Signs from the Heart of the Earth and women’s rights. Recently, they have collaborated Judith Baca, U.S.A. and Martha Oropeza, Mexico with others in the U.K. to “widen the circle.” Shoaib Iqbal gave a workshop based on work that draws its inspiration Judith Baca from the and Martha Ramirez from a long tradition of indigenous theatre in Pakistan Oropeza from Mexico, two pioneering visual artists, and, at the same time, is committed to the development offered a hands-on experience that fused ancient symbols of alternative theatre on a community level. Over the past and wisdom from Mexico with contemporary realities.

The EARTH Symposium I 7 Standing around an ancient manuscript, we invoked the Dance Workshop ancestors. To the East: light, intelligence, wisdom. To the Alvaro Restrepo, Colombia West: the feminine aspect, protection, transformation. To the North: the ancestors, the region of death and to Alvaro Restrepo, director and co-founder of Colegio del connection to all that has passed. To the South: the place Cuerpo [the College of the Body] in Cartagena, Colombia, where willpower is born and creativity resides. taught some of his movement techniques and teaching methods. Before the group started to move, he spoke By honouring the old traditions we were preparing to about his programs in Colombia. His work for healing the create new ones. These traditions brought people’s inner spirit through dance, breath and touch has opened stories to public spaces in visual form, telling stories that up a whole new world for disadvantaged and displaced were based in collective experience and sensibilities. youth who attend his school. The Colegio helps these Images created from personal stories were extrapolated young people to build their self-esteem and, ultimately, to to represent the wider human experience. create more positive futures for themselves. It offers a place where youth can confront their problems in a Oropeza and Baca say, “Start with what you know and constructive and spiritually-rich way, through an watch it grow.” They understand their own traditions and, approach that is rooted in the body. “For many children, working in the present, they fuse the ancient and the the Colegio is the only place where it is safe for them to present to make borders disappear – borders between lie on a clean floor, shut their eyes and relax their body.” then and now, between ourselves and others. They guided us through a process to discover common ground One program, called “My Body, My Home,” has helped and then we illustrated the feelings and experiences that young people to understand the connection between their we shared. We imagined a world without fear. Ideas physical selves and the environments they live in, many became words, pictures, movement and dance, and we of them having come from very challenging situations. were swept away. We experienced the power of a kind of The body is explored as their sanctuary and source of collaborative art making that can be so strong that rival identity. A company of 18 young dancers, who perform gangs have put down their guns to pick up paintbrushes. contemporary work, has been created from the work of Ultimately, it is about sharing. The next time you create the Colegio over the last seven years and tours in South something, consider trying what Judy suggested. “Hand America and Europe. Restrepo’s pedagogy is influenced the brush to the person next to you and let them finish by his training at the Graham and Cunningham schools the piece.” What a lovely gesture of generosity. as well as a love of traditional Korean dance. Training at the Colegio includes the study of anatomy as well as sex The two women also told us about the World Wall, a and health education. large mural that is travelling across the globe. Each time it is goes to a new location, a panel is added by Workshop participants began the session as strangers. community artists, each panel telling a new story about We were taught a series of simple contemporary dance the place and the people who live there. and trust exercises that involved breathing, touch and manipulation of the body by another participant, as well as movement exploration rooted in everyday experience. This process was gentle and expansive and we soon worked together with remarkable ease.

8 I The EARTH Symposium Music Workshop: Mitote Music constructed as well as the nature of the invitation to Daniel Sanchez, Mexico participate in public Forum Theatre. (These are performances in which audience members replace an The Mitote music session, led by Daniel Sanchez, was an actor on stage in order to try to effect more positive amazing experience. Sanchez first shared his philosophy resolutions to the conflict in that scene.) of Mitote with us. He described how all living things are manifestations of vibrations and how we take part in a Diamond suggested that the topic of investigation for the symphony of vibrations every day, contributing our part workshop be based around the group’s struggles with to a totality. He also explained that focusing on our doing social justice work and the group readily agreed. vibration enables us to channel it in a positive and useful manner. The Mitote is a traditional Mexican ceremony Through several hours of simple, fun, physically-based dating back several generations, in which people games and exercises, the group explored group gathered together and collectively celebrated their voices dynamics, trust in self and others, opposition, balance, and rhythms. Sanchez’ work incorporates these traditions harmony, mutuality, tactics and strategies, and restraint of with social and environmental activism. personal power for the good of the group, as well as ways to heighten our physical senses. The language of Once the group grasped the philosophy, it was time to images was then introduced, their power a consequence create some rhythms of our own. We chanted verses and of the many ways that any still image can be understood. moved to a beat stomped out on the floor by Mr. Each person made a shape that reflected his/her own Sanchez. Next, we patted out rhythms on our bodies, personal struggle. In a step-by-step process, the group each group of people tapping a different body part. These then brought shapes together, creating a collective, still sounds combined to produce a connected whole and image. At one point, within this image, each person Sanchez danced jubilantly to this music in the centre of spoke a single sentence, reflecting one major desire, such the circle. We were then given what would be considered as "I want someone to help me"; "I want to stop this”; "I by many to be garbage: old cans, bottles, tape, rubber want to be able to open up and see other’s struggles bands and tins, and Sanchez showed us how to transform more clearly." The group then talked about this image, them into musical instruments. A variety of instruments the stories within in it and how its symbolism affected were created, including a soda can with a rubber band them. Through this process came new understanding taped to it, which was used to twang out a melody and about issues as well as ideas about how to move forward. some rice in a cut-off can that was turned into a shaker. A shredded plastic water bottle was used to create a rustler, bottles were blown into, and some old cans with garbage bags taped to the top became drums. After the lengthy process of making these instruments, the whole group took part in a symphony of healthy vibrating, conducted by one of the participants!

Theatre For Living David Diamond, Canada

Twenty participants began this day-long session by introducing themselves and speaking about their reasons for attending this particular workshop. These reasons included a desire to engage in different creative processes; interest in the creation of theatre “from the Near the end of the day, in a final exercise called inside out”; wanting to learn about techniques of Theatre Magnetic Image, three people each created a shape with of the Oppressed; interest in the marriage between their bodies that was the shape of the strongest emotion politics, art and theatre as a tool for community they had felt in a moment of struggle in their personal mobilization; and wanting to learn about how people can lives. The rest of the group then each chose the one use image-making in different social contexts. image they most related to, splitting off into three smaller groups. In each of these groups, people talked about David Diamond spoke about the history of Augusto Boal’s what drew them toward that particular shape and Theatre of the Oppressed, a form of theatre that is rooted investigated its emotional core – the emotional truth – of in lived experience in the community, one that tells that image. From this discussion, the groups created and stories that come out of those collective realities. He showed three new images that told the story of this core described how he has developed this form into Theatre emotion. The inner monologue of each “character” was For Living. He is no longer using the “oppressor/ investigated out loud and then a dialogue in single oppressed” language of the Boal work. This redefines the sentences began. Eventually, this dialogue developed into way games and exercises are approached, how plays are

The EARTH Symposium I 9 address: the need to cross artistic boundaries. As John said, “We should be able to work in ways that who we are.” Marcus and John shared some major shifts they have made in their own work:

• Marcus described how he and his Re-Claiming Project partner Mercedes Baines moved from giving the kind of anti-racism workshops often done in schools (that routinely feature scenes in which someone says something “bad,” followed by an intervention) to doing workshops that nurture the expression of student voices by sharing family and personal stories, followed by creation in a form of their choice such as books, murals and short plays. a full movement and text improvisation. As a result of • John shared how he has done a shift in his thinking this process and the conversation that followed, we better about his own writing, from believing that the purpose understood the complex nature of the practical and of his plays was to deliver a “message,” to a present emotional struggles we face in our social justice work and focus on engaging his audiences in an entertaining came away with new skills to use in that work. way in order to allow them “in” to the issues he wanted to explore. A lot of discussion then centred around writing about Displacement, Identity and Globalization different forms of conflict, about racism, about finding Tony Le Nguyen, Australia/ authentic voice and about different notions of truth. There was an exploration of “bad” characters in storytelling and Tony Le Nguyen talked about the extensive work he has about the restrictions often placed on students that done in Australia with Vietnamese youth to address prevent true expression, such as when teachers “correct” realities of the Vietnamese diaspora. (He also works with student writing rather than encouraging them to write youth in Vietnam, itself.) His wide-ranging work bridges freely. The group talked about the legal and social the worlds of community cultural development, youth dilemmas that can occur when a student reveals “too theatre and mainstream theatre. Le Nguyen brings much” that is personal or traumatic. People described theatre to Australian young people who often believe, at teachers who want to do plays that model how young first, that it is neither interesting nor relevant to their lives. people should behave rather than allowing space for the Le Nguyen listens and learns about the realities and truths that really interest them. We finished up with a issues of their daily lives, which he then incorporates into great exercise in the expression of voice, taking on theatre work to which they can relate. Le Nguyen has characters from the First Nations/Quebec police conflict at witnessed the myriad ways that participation in theatre the Oka/Kahnesatake crisis in Quebec of some years ago. and television production can empower young people; instead of expressing their anger and frustration through violence, his students find a new outlet for their Dance Workshop – Meanings, Methods emotions. He has seen that, by fostering their creativity, and Messages: Global Connections and they are less likely to get ”stuck” and more likely to turn away from drugs and other destructive behaviours. Personal Perspectives Liz Lerman and Elizabeth Johnson, U.S.A.

Artists link many worlds and art-making is central to that Writing Workshop exchange. Dance is created using text, research and Marcus Youssef and John Lazarus, observation, as well as drawing from personal history Canada and Kimingichi Wabende, and larger social and political contexts. In this session, using a collaborative process, including physical Kimingichi Wabende was absent because his visa to partnering, participants explored ways to develop Canada was denied. an individual vision while also strengthening their Marcus Youssef launched the session with a warm-up facilitation skills. writing exercise in which participants were told to Approximately 30 people actively participated in this all- imagine the first time they ever saw a huge expanse of day workshop given by Liz Lerman and Elizabeth star-lit sky, the first time that they were ever conscious of Johnson from Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. A series of the enormity of space. exercises offered participants various options or tools that Dialogue continued with an affirmation of something that they could use in their own working situations. These Liz Lerman had talked about at her lunchtime keynote were processes that the LLDE artists have honed and

10 I The EARTH Symposium developed over many years of work in varied community personal contribution and community. It is a reaction to and professional settings. The workshop was “team- mainstream media and to the exclusion of our voices taught” with Liz and Elizabeth alternating in leading the from this dominant form of communication. Stasko exercises. After short, haiku-like introductions, explained that when living in this overwhelming media participants were led through a series of warm-up environment, we might think about breathing as a exercises. In one of these, participants were asked to metaphor: “You can only take in so much before you remain in place, close their eyes and follow movement have to let it out.” directions given by Liz. These directions were more like questions, such as “What parts of our bodies can we Culture jamming is about refusing to allow companies to move in circles?” This form of improvisation is a key own you or your mind. “We are trained to think of certain element of the company’s work, one that encourages images when viewing a product and as a result, the participants to create their own physical vocabularies. company who makes that product now owns a part of you and your thought process.” Stasko traced this Throughout the day, participants did exercises that phenomenon back to a time when society went through a involved creating choreography in small groups, “perfectionist period,” when advertisers started to tell us demonstrating and sharing the results with the larger that our bodies were flawed and that the only thing that group. A great deal of learning occurred through this could save us was the purchase of their products. process, since both Liz and Elizabeth encouraged very Companies used fear and insecurity to sell products and, specific critical feedback, asking participants to consider for the most part, society believed them. We have what made things meaningful to them and encouraged become zombies who eat up the lies that companies and everyone to look at the work with generous eyes. corporations feed us. Through culture jamming, Stasko suggests, you can take your power back. She described A common theme that emerged from the exercises was many ways to culture jam including writing on ads, the notion of how important it is to offer people tools, the creating your own media, such as ‘zines, and learning to space and encouragement to tell their own stories; and to be a critical consumer of media. She told us about use movement that they, themselves, have created as a “subway ,” travelling dance parties on downtown personal, expressive way to communicate those stories. subways where imagitators board the trains with music, Liz explained, “It’s hard for people to learn that they are in original art and high energy. Before long, you can’t tell charge of their lives. It takes time.” This day of work in who started the and who joined in along the way. her rich and rewarding methodology provided everyone It’s a great way to snap people out of their apathy. with new tools and perspectives.

arepp: Theatre For Life Brigid Schutz, South Africa

Brigid Schutz shared some of arepp’s puppetry and theatre work used in for social life-skills education in support of disadvantaged Southern African youth. Arepp provides travelling educational theatre performances with facilitated discussion sessions, the distribution of complementary material and training workshops that address issues related to the mental and physical well- being of the communities they visit. Schutz explained that arepp employs actors and presenters who travel to schools primarily throughout South Africa and perform for groups in many native languages. (They also work extensively in Kenya, and and, to a lesser extent, in , Zimbabwe, Reunion, Scotland and Norway.) Schutz spoke at length about the ways in Culture Collage which the group tackles issues like abuse, sexuality and HIV/AIDS through the use of dramatic presentations and, Carly Stasko, Canada particularly, the presence of many kinds of puppets like Carly Stasko’s workshop was a cut ‘n’ paste session about MacMonkey, the large bright blue puppet, who came with media, play and social change. Topics for discussion her to the Symposium. included culture jamming, globalization, the history of advertising, strategies for grassroots media literacy Schutz spoke about the wide range of issues confronted education and creative resistance. Stasko created and by the various age groups with which her organisation defines the word “imagitator” as someone who agitates works. She described how artists have faced difficulties in imagination. Culture jamming is all about improvisation, working with older youth, who are often resistant to their

The EARTH Symposium I 11 work, by creating new material that is more sensitive to their perspectives. She also talked about the pleasure of working with adult audiences when they have been able to enter a world of the imagination. Her workshop opened up a new world for many of us in the session.

Graffiti Workshop Take5 (Mikeal Frazer), Canada

Graffiti has had a dubious reputation ever since it became a widespread form of art. Although it is often seen merely as destruction of property, Mikeal Frazer, alias Take5, who is an internationally-recognized graffiti artist, argued that graffiti is a form of dialogue in public space, of communication – not an act of defiance, but rather an act of acknowledgement and self-expression. Graffiti uses The organization favours a democratic approach to colour, line and language as a form of social interaction. learning, promoting collaboration and participation rather Graffiti confronts everyone who sees it, but does not than a hierarchical learning environment. This is achieved discriminate whatever their age, sex or class. by peer review and critique as well as involving former students in ongoing relationships where they become After learning some basic graffiti lingo and painting mentors to new students. Carmin Carotenuto, a former technique, participants were handed a mask, some paint student of Pacific Cinémathèque’s programs, underlined cans and the freedom to use those tools to express the important role that the mentor-instructor plays in themselves. Our instructions were to make a statement clarifying any “grey areas” that might remain after the and to have fun doing it. Creative energy grew as ideas more technically-oriented workshops are finished and in were shared between people who had just met and were working as a guiding hand during the production process, not able to remember each other’s names. A community even though the creative process remains entirely in the of fledgling graffiti artists quickly emerged. Despite the hands of the students. negative connotations associated with graffiti, our experience was quite the opposite. The organization also stresses community involvement and works primarily with topics that are close to the creators’ hearts, something that became clear from the Video Production Education: A Collaborative selection of videos we saw. Issues ranged from concerns that young people might have, such as problems at Model of Teaching and Learning school, drugs and alcohol, unemployment, homelessness Pacific Cinémathèque, Canada and violence, to road safety, and to the documentation of During the past nine years, Pacific Cinémathèque has a community play. developed a model of video production training for Following the presentation of the videos, some of the children, youth and adults that is rooted in media literacy, participants shared their own experiences that involved community engagement and inter-generational learning the use of video production as a tool for community through the inclusion of youth mentors in all aspects of involvement and social change. Pamela Verma, a member the process. In this workshop, Pacific Cinémathèque staff of a Vancouver group called Redefining Canadian, presented this pedagogical model in a dialogue for described how video production serves as an educational educators, artists and community members interested in tool that often appeals to young people and how they collaborative models for teaching and learning about used it to create awareness about the problems faced by video production. immigrants and refugees. Analee Weinberger, education director of Pacific Cinémathèque, began with a brief overview of the organization’s work, followed by a presentation of some Cardboard Citizens: A Theatre Workshop of the video work done by previous workshop Adrian Jackson, U.K. participants, specifically, disadvantaged youth who would This workshop used techniques rooted in Augusto Boal’s otherwise not have had access to media production Theatre of the Oppressed (also known as Forum Theatre) programs and facilities. In addition to educational to observe and question concepts of social justice and programs about varying aspects of media production, human rights. Adrian Jackson is the director of Cardboard Pacific Cinémathèque also teaches media literacy with an Citizens, a renowned U.K. touring theatre company, emphasis on deconstructing media products and the whose performers and audiences are predominantly messages that they are trying to convey. homeless people, ex-homeless people and refugees.

12 I The EARTH Symposium Jackson seeks to create a space for discussion that will members are invited to shout, ”Stop!” to freeze the provoke social change by raising consciousness on issues action. Then they replace an actor on stage and try to act both within and outside of marginalized communities. out a better solution to the issues in that scene. They are After introducing his company’s work to the twenty confronted with actors trained to react in the most participants (who were all ages and who came from realistic way possible, often making resolution very many different cultures), Adrian taught us exercises that challenging. While Adrian explicitly states that he is not a would bring the work home. The first, “Hypnosis,” done therapist, his staff is trained to provide counselling for in pairs, gave each partner in turn the power to direct the members of the marginalized communities it serves. other with his or her hand. The range of gestures soon expanded, making us sing, shout, kneel, creep and even throw ourselves into the air. In “Bridges,” the next task, Visual Arts: Earthly Interventions – A Collection we each created a unique call to lead our partners who of Visually-Poetic Punctuations roamed the room with their eyes closed. Gradually M. Simon Levin and Jessica Jang increasing the complexity, Adrian next had us physically portray different times of day on various days of the M. Simon Levin and Jessica Jang held an interactive week. Later this was expanded to explore major events visual arts workshop to explore strategies that that have had an impact on people around the world. We communicate our relationship with the land. Participants ended the session with “Machines,” in which we acted discovered the power of repeated simple gestures and out situations of consumerism, its antidote, and, then created poetic interventions that “punctuated” eventually, explored states of happiness. public space. Using found and natural materials, they created forms that embodied interconnectivity and both These exercises gave us the chance to confront issues compassion and healing for our environment. Participants that we might have thought about a great deal but also learned about some of the temporal (temporary) had never had a chance to “act” upon. The group was environmental work of leading contemporary artists. A able to explore what might happen if we actually did comfortable and creative environment was created, what we deeply desired. We explored how it felt to be in allowing each participant to grow into activities at his/her someone else’s position of power and what happiness own pace. could look like. To start, each person in the group of about twenty people Adrian is a director, not a therapist. Forum Theatre, he from all over the world, chose from an array of natural says, must be both good theatre and should help people objects and, as a group, placed them in relationship to to confront and deal with real situations. Audience

The EARTH Symposium I 13 each other on the ground, transforming a concrete plane marked a refugee camp. Participants took off their shoes into a collage of patterns, textures and ideas. After a and sat around the canvas while George Chandler from period of more exploration, the group was ready to take the Canadian Red Cross introduced his volunteers. They their message into the public eye, and placed leaves and then explained how different kinds of experiential rocks in and on the façade of the Dance Centre, creating a learning, like this board game, are used by the Red Cross “new” front wall of the building. Each participant was to illustrate the limitations of humanitarian efforts during then given an empty intravenous bag (IV) that they conflict, at the same time challenging us to imagine daily filled with items symbolizing what the earth might need realities of people who live in regions plagued by war. to heal. The final step was to venture out and hang their “IV bags for the earth” somewhere in the city, leaving One of the dilemmas game-players faced when they took behind their creations in public spaces. A few on the roles of Afghan citizens was the risk of stepping on participants brought up the need to recycle these landmines as they went about their daily life. While some artistic interventions. people were fortunate enough not to land on a mine, the roll of the dice proved disastrous for others. Chandler Playing with the “rules” of public space and leaving a explained how access to prosthetic limbs may be crucial message for others to discover was a simple and easy for the economic survival of a family. At a cost of $3,000 process, yet this is so rarely done in such a harmless and each in a country where the average citizen earns the effective way. equivalent of $12 per day, many who need this help must do without.

Spoken Word/Performance Poetry This workshop showed clearly how playing a game that reflects real social and economic situations can lead to Sara Kendall, Canada new knowledge and insight…and that this kind of To get their minds and tongues rolling, Sarah Kendall led learning can be fun. participants through a series of simple exercises that played with sounds and words. These exercises built confidence and demonstrated the power of even a simple combination of random sounds. As random words and sounds were connected, participants began to create their own pieces or “pieces of pieces.” They further explored the power of words to break down boundaries, transform energy and change perspectives by sharing ideas and doing creative work together. The workshop emphasized the power of words to resolve problems and sort out differences. Although speaking and expressing personal opinions seemed daunting at first, Kendall created a very comfortable environment and the rhythm and music of poetry quickly spread through the room. Even several Japanese delegates, who were attending the workshop without their translator, were able to join this creative and energizing process. PETA Theatre Workshop Joaquin (Jack) Yabut, Philippines

Jack Yabut’s interactive workshop shared some of the Children and War: innovative theatre/movement techniques developed by A Board Game and a Performance the Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA) Red Cross and Youth from Sierra Leone over the last 30 years. In addition to acting as coordinator for PETA, Yabut is also the president of the Firefly Youth who were scheduled to perform a play about their Brigade, an organization that promotes non-motorized lives in a refugee camp at this session were refused visas transportation in the Philippines with an annual costumed to enter Canada. bicycle ride around Manila that involves many thousands A large, hand-painted sheet of canvas lay in the middle of of participants, as well as work in other centres around the studio floor. This stylized map of a village in the country. During this workshop, using part of the Afghanistan, replete with a marketplace, a hospital and a process used in the Philippines, participants were asked prison, had been created by twenty high school art to imagine themselves as fireflies, to think about the students. On one side of the map, high mountains rose world they lived in and then to create a firefly costume. up in the countryside, while small wooded areas, Colourful fabric, paper, paint, foil and wire were spread farmland and fields dotted with sheep sprawled out on out in the studio and for the next hour wings, antennas the other side. Close to the mountains, a few tents and glowing tails took shape. Yabut then led the group in an improvised firefly dance set to indigenous music from

14 I The EARTH Symposium northern . By this time, everyone had lost any last people can leave behind their daily existence and create vestige of self-consciousness; Jack had created a very new identities; where they can form new relationships in informal, creative and relaxed atmosphere in the studio. a place where they are able to imagine a world outside Silliness was allowed! To complete the workshop, the camp; a space in which it becomes possible to participants viewed video footage of previous Firefly envision a different and better way of life. Brigade rides and learned about Yabut’s vision to combine cycling, activism and theatre to address As we got up on our feet and learned simple techniques environmental and social issues in his country. like asking people to demonstrate everyday actions such as stirring a pot or turning a key, we became free from the self-consciousness of performing. Cooperation and hilarity warmed the whole room. By the end of the session we were moving freely, visualizing vividly and having fun.

Documenting Your Work on Video jil p. weaving and Patti Fraser, Canada

The Documenting Engagement Institute recently brought artists together from across Canada to learn how to tell the stories of their community arts projects on video. Participants joined jil p. weaving and Patti Fraser to see some of these videos and to discuss the techniques used to make them. Documenting Engagement was designed to teach artists how to use video and digital editing to create a portfolio on videotape. This portfolio serves a Dance in Traumatized Communities number of purposes including the combination of visual Nicholas Rowe, West Bank Palestine/Israel and audio stimuli, which, weaving and Fraser contend, is It is hard to have the courage to dance in front of others; the way most people absorb the greatest amount of it is even harder, perhaps, to imagine people dancing in material. The videos are also useful for funding and war-ravaged settings. Nicholas Rowe spends his time sponsorship proposals, allowing potential backers to see doing just that with groups of Palestinian children in the exactly what kind of work they might support. refugee camps around the city of Ramallah. Furthermore, the videos enable artists such as dancers, mosaic builders and mural painters to “take their work Dance was an important part of Palestinian culture in the with them.” Finally, the videos ensure that there is little 19th century, but since Palestinians have become largely chance for misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the a nation of refugees, most dances have gradually been artist’s work by an outside source, such as a media outlet. lost as a consequence of the disintegration of a coherent social fabric. dances remained popular for a Artists in this program were taught how to build a long time, but even this tradition was lost as acts of narrative about their art and/or community work which, celebration came to seem irreverent in the face of the according to weaving and Fraser, is as important as the very harsh realities people face in their daily lives. At archival video footage itself. weaving and Fraser, who present, much movement and most games involve worked closely with the artists to create personal stories, aggression and hostility – marching, chanting, the found that the biggest challenge in documenting their shaking of fists. The games children play offer little work was to capture all of the perspectives present in structure or knowledge of teamwork. both art-making and in community development. They discovered that it can be easier to “find the story in the The West Bank arts program Rowe works with has taken footage” if the documentary filmmaker seeks advice from dance to about 15,000 children and has trained 800 storytellers. Often a person who knows how to tell a great workshop leaders. Workshops centre around four anecdote at a party can help focus the documentary from fundamental principles: creativity, communication, a story-telling perspective that the artist cannot see cooperation and continuity. Children in the camps have because she or he is too attached to the subject. no space for focused activities. After three generations of living in camps, many young Palestinians have little Fraser recommended that artists and community activists concept of what life could be like in a place free of clarify the reasons for documenting their work as well as shootings, murder, fear and war. Teaching children learning how to document them. Clarity and simplicity movement games is an ideal way to engage them, to are key; whether an artist/activist shows his/her work to teach important cooperation skills, to nurture trust and to an arts council or to a meeting at the local library, a keep the learning alive after the workshop is over. straightforward story has the greatest chance of reaching Everyone can participate. Workshops offer a space where the widest audience.

The EARTH Symposium I 15 Video On the Fly: A Youth-Mentored Video Production Workshop Pacific Cinémathèque, Canada

Pacific Cinémathèque instructors and youth mentors taught a fast-paced, hands-on primer of digital video skills for documentation, storytelling and community engagement. Participants learned some basic camera skills and received an introduction to visual storytelling and interviewing techniques in a community context. Guided by youth mentors and equipped with their own cameras, participants put their new skills to work documenting the rest of the Symposium.

Media Workshop – noise: Creative Expression on Visual Arts Workshop: Designing Your World Multiple Platforms Dolly Hopkins, Canada Brandon Saul, Australia Workshop participants were instantly captivated by Dolly Hopkins’ impassioned voice, urgent gesticulations and noise is: “created on top of silence” pants covered in swirling shapes. “Creativity is our life noise is: “ ribbons of a maypole” force!” she exclaimed. “I would die, if I could not express myself, if I were not able to create!” She asked the group noise is: “an opportunity for young people to have their to “take a risk, to empower yourselves and to see what voices heard and art appreciated” you can do to overcome the negative done to us,” while, at the same time, acknowledging possible barriers to noise is: “only time can tell” creative expression. noise is a national youth media in Australia Three long, wide, pieces of white paper filled the space that exhibits young artists and their work across radio, inside the circle of chairs. Along their length rested boxes television, in print, and on-line. In October, 2003, noise of oil pastels. Hopkins directed the group to “create an gave young, creative Australians mass-media exposure, image of the world you want to live in.” People were reaching an audience of over 15 million. quiet at first, some meditative, some apprehensive. Others were excited and dove quickly into the process. Participants joined Brandon Saul in a workshop that She encouraged participants to allow themselves to free explored the significant role that art plays in validating up their individual passions, and to recognize the personal, individual experience, a role that is increasingly passions of others around them as well. On the large important as the forces of globalization propagate cultural pages, the edges of people’s pictures began to touch each homogeneity. The diversity of participants at this session other and quiet dialogues of respect and inquiry emerged was quite marked, as were their contributions to the between neighbours. We talked about shared visions discussion. Saul was highly interested in taking the and possibility. underlying idea of noise and expanding it to the global community. His aim was to have international Hopkins then shared a tale about how opportunities can representation at noise 2005. Saul felt that their biggest emerge, and how the gifts that people receive along their challenges for this project were to create incentives for journeys may surprise them and offer guidance and youth engagement and to identify a theme that would inspiration. After performing for a group of children in appeal to youth on a global scale. Vancouver, she was offered a chance to tour South America. She travelled down one coast of the continent One participant suggested using anti-hegemonic or anti- and back up the other, until one day she found herself, American sentiments as a building block for the global much to her surprise, in the middle of a Brazilian desert in theme. With the cultural market flooded with American a concrete compound, giving a performance to 900 products, he suggested there was a need for national, orphans. After the show, one boy ran back to his room indigenous artistic production. However, other with bits of wax and paper and twigs, created a tiny participants felt that this goal needed to be approached lantern, lit it, and ran after her. Putting it into her hands he with a more positive and inclusive slant. said, “Thank you for bringing the light.” She returned Another participant from Kenya highlighted the from this journey, vowing that one day she would do challenges of bringing technology to nations where something to honour this gift of light from his small accessibility is an issue. Not everyone has access to the hands. Illuminares, an annual celebration of light that Internet, radio, or other means of communication. Saul takes place in Vancouver and draws thousands of people proceeded to illustrate ways in which the issue of each year, is the fulfillment of this promise. accessibility could be approached. To involve minority 16 I The EARTH Symposium youth in noise 2000, the festival commissioned a young Sing 4 Life Chinese artist to produce a piece that would speak to Michele Schiess, South Africa others like her and encourage others to contribute. They also distributed 250 disposable cameras to youth who Focusing on addiction and rehabilitation, Sing 4 Life, otherwise could not acquire them. The cameras were based in Pretoria, works with music to bring meaning, returned, pictures were selected and a book was pride and success into the lives of troubled South African published that sold 10,000 copies. youth. Michelle Schiess’ workshop explored the power of music as a tool for both education and empowerment. A At the end of the session, participants went home with passionate speaker and advocate, she told us about the issues of the noise 2003 magazine as well as samples of a rampant spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, due in great press kit that Saul had produced. The kit included part to a lack of awareness and education. The disease is information about the artists who participated in noise ravaging the country’s population, leaving millions of 2003, and helped to attract media attention to the festival. children orphaned and disillusioned. Poverty is noise 2003 is an inspiring and creative project that widespread and many children with whom Scheiss and empowers youth and provides them with a forum where her colleagues work, go to school often not having not they can express themselves at a national level. eaten for days.

Sing 4 Life’s purpose is to “advocate and intervene.” The First Nations Teachings In Canada name Sing 4 Life comes from the idea that singing and Mary-Elizabeth Manley and John Powell, Canada music are the “universal language of the soul.” In order for your soul to sing, you must be in tune with your body This workshop was facilitated by Mary-Elizabeth Manley, and the world around you. Sing 4 Life is about education, a dance educator interested in youth dance and new horizons and passion; the group stands by the belief performance, and First Nations philosophies, and by John that “individual passion makes the difference.” Schiess Powell, a costume, fashion, and interior designer, who and her four colleagues also help South African also teaches genealogy, contemporary First Nations communities to become more self-sufficient by teaching design and traditional regalia-making. The session them to plant gardens for food and medicine, and then to focused on the sustainability of the natural environment recycle the waste from those gardens to make paper from a First Nations traditional perspective – giving back which they sell. to the land, the sea and the sky. Through movement improvisation, spoken word and theatre games – Their current project will bring twenty-five disadvantaged and embracing some of the values of the elders – and HIV-positive youth to a national park bordering participants created statements that reflected respect to sing, dance and play out their stories for for their environment. one another for fifteen days. Through sharing their stories and experiences, the children will not feel so alone. Away First, they played a short game to learn about their from their homes, out in the wide-open space with wild shared interests: youth, indigenous cultures, arts and animals and freedom, great strides can be made and environmental issues. Next, a series of exercises explored perspectives changed. sound, text, and movement. The group repeated and chanted vowels and changed pitches, experimenting with vibrations. People were struck by the positive feelings THRoB: Theatre of Becoming/ generated by the sound of their voices working together. Freedom for a Change Participants next broke into groups to experiment with a Alex Mavrocordatos, U.K. series of syllables that they were given, elaborating them using sound and movement, later learning that the cdcArts is an extensive, university-based, community syllables when joined together meant: “One with the air, cultural development program in the U.K. that teaches the sea and the land.” They were then asked to techniques for the self-development of marginalized incorporate this notion into their work. groups through cultural engagement. Alex Mavrocordatos, who both teaches at the university where In a last exercise, three groups representing land, sea and the program is given and works in projects around the air, asked, “What do these elements represent for you? world, began his hands-on theatre/animation workshop What concerns do you have for them? What resolutions with the assertion that change begins with the individual; or positive outcomes can you find for them?” After that only when the individual changes, can the discussion, each group used spoken word, movement community change. Through a series of improvisational and sound to create short statements born out of techniques, participants spontaneously created structures this dialogue. and methods for interacting with one another. Moods shifted, memories were awakened and a release from rationality, pragmatism and didacticism occurred. A series of dance, vocalization and illustration exercises

The EARTH Symposium I 17 encouraged the group to delve into their creative “The less light you have, the more you can do with it.” imaginations, a process that is crucial when trying to shift Uncertain about the meaning behind his paradoxical away from a linear approach to problem-solving. words, “less is more,” we scratched out our ideas on a Mavrocordatos’ technique concentrates on creating an black-painted glass canvas. atmosphere where “what needs to be told” can slowly emerge rather than on “homing in” solely on a specific Light is a unique artistic medium that both is and is not. problem. This challenged participants to think about the Shapes can be covered or uncovered slowly or abruptly problem “without thinking about the problem.” Shifts to create movement through space or to alter perceptions could be subtle and, at times, not complete, but each of pre-existing images. Simple abstract images are ideal, attempt brought participants closer to that place where for they create a wider range of possible perceptions for creativity and innovation can blossom. the audience. Crisafulli showed us that the use of less light created greater precision.

The meaning of “light as action” and “less is more” Conflict Evolution: Working and became clear. He said, “Let the light go where you Playing with Conflict as a Creative Force want”…and as we played, we made our own surprising Robert Morgan, Canada and rewarding discoveries using this simple technique.

Canadian artist, Robert Morgan, held an interactive workshop based on “conflict evolution,” the underlying principle of the Children’s Peace Theatre. Morgan teaches children to embrace their anger without violence and to explore conflict in a compassionate, courageous and creative way. Although not all conflicts have solutions, they can be explored at a higher level of consciousness, one that turns the conflict, itself, into creative energy. Morgan’s program explores ideas about conflict and peace at the individual, family, community and global level in an environment that is safe and open.

Through the use of drama, music, movement and voice work, participants had the opportunity to develop new approaches that helped to reinforce the underlying Dance Workshop – Embodying the belief that peace can become possible, no matter what EARTH Symposium the circumstance. Elizabeth Johnson, U.S.A.

Workshop participants consolidated their impressions of Visual Arts: Light As Action their experience at Breaking New Ground by using Fabrizio Crisafulli, Italy movement as their language and learned about new tools to generate movement from personal experience. During Fabrizio Crisafulli, an acclaimed Italian theatre/visual this reflective session, the group collaborated on the artist, fuses theatre, dance and visual arts to mix text, creation of compositions that delved into the highlights movement, space and light. An essential component of and insights gained during the previous days of the his work is an emphasis on the use of light to sculpt gathering. Throughout the session, Johnson focused the theatre space, not just as a way to illuminate performers. group’s attention on becoming more aware of themselves In this workshop, he shared a simple, inexpensive and and each other and encouraged them to express their innovative technique that uses overhead projectors to thoughts and feelings through movement. In this open achieve elaborate projected lighting effects. atmosphere, everyone felt comfortable “performing” in Crisafulli began by stating, “I make peculiar works,” but front of one another, regardless of whether they were this technique was very straightforward: we used three professional dancers or not. The workshop also overhead projectors, three squares of lighting gel paper demonstrated the power of art to transcend language (red, blue and green), scissors, tape, construction paper, barriers; two participants, for example, who spoke very glass and paint. Wasn’t this too simple? In a flashback to little English, were still able to fully participate and bask in elementary school, each person began to cut out paper the wealth of creativity present in the room. shapes – then slowly, uncovering itself through layering, an unexpectedly beautiful and diverse backdrop of colour and design began to emerge. We made form by creating negatives.

18 I The EARTH Symposium Self-Care Workshop While his address covered a wide range of weighty Josephine Krizovensky, Canada issues, including questions of war and conflict, the phenomenon of globalization, genocide in and This workshop focused on learning to RELAX. the HIV/AIDS pandemic, he began his presentation with a Participants learned and practiced a variety of simple celebration of the many ways that art engages, helps, techniques using movement, breathing, meditation and heals and educates people. Whether it is Canada’s Raging touch. We learned different breathing exercises designed Grannies singing songs of political satire, the Guerrilla to calm and focus the racing mind or to energize and Girls in New York City using street theatre to fight for recharge when we’re tired. Simple movements to stretch gender equality, or the use of drama and theatre to help the body and release tension were taught; self-massage Rwandan kids understand “the meaning of tolerance, and and pressure points on the hands and head soothed the social equity and affection and love and solidarity…” art mind and body. Guided meditation brought awareness has incalculable power. “Art reaches through everyone’s and relaxation to the entire body. Coming on the last defences…messages are received that would otherwise day of the Symposium, these techniques were fall on deaf ears. The use of these cultural vehicles are the immediately useful! material of the uprooted and disinherited, the material of the disenfranchised to connect with society and make their point. They have wit to break through; they make a tremendous impact on social change and no one Keynote Presentations should depreciate it. It unites people…. There is a camaraderie which is stitched together by virtue of the shared artistic experience.” Stephen Lewis Mr. Lewis then examined some of the effects of economic “The premise that I begin with, for what it’s worth, is that globalisation on the “Majority World” and on global one is put on this planet for a purpose and the purpose issues of environmental and social justice, saying that has to be, it just must be, improving the human “globalization, if anything, is causing far more turmoil condition, effecting social change.” internationally than it is causing reconciliation and social justice.” He also spoke fervently and hopefully about the Stephen Lewis has undeniably devoted his life’s work to large and diverse international movement that opposes fulfilling that purpose. He has served as the Deputy the abuses of globalization. Executive Director for UNICEF and is presently the Special Envoy for Secretary-General Kofi Annan for HIV/AIDS in Mr. Lewis then moved on to describe some of the terrible Africa. He has received fifteen honourary degrees and is a realities of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, a continent Companion of the Order of Canada. He has recently he has been visiting for 45 years. He told his audience created a foundation to support work to combat the about the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS and recounted HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The EARTH Symposium I 19 moving stories of his personal encounters with young Mr. Lewis ended his passionate, emotional and people whose lives are filled with unimaginable compelling talk with a call to action: “We need help from difficulties and challenges. He also spoke about programs the international community and international he had witnessed where healing art-work with young movements that bring the international community to its people was working effectively. He talked about the senses. It is a long, long struggle! Those of you who essential role of play to “knit people together.” He praised happen to have the added, wondrous capacity of artistic the courage and resilience of people living with – and expression to communicate in ways that others can’t, use fighting – almost impossible conditions. it to the full! It is a glorious, palliative antidote to the insanity that surrounds us.” He also provided his audience with a focus for action. He said that people must unite, both locally and globally, to combat the pandemic, which continues to spread at a Liz Lerman frightening rate in , India and in Russia and many other parts of the world, as well as in Africa. Mr. Lewis Liz Lerman is one of the world’s leading pioneers in the described two especially effective strategies for fighting field of dance and community-building, and recipient of the virus: one is to continue to creatively promote the 2002 MacArthur Genius Fellowship. She is a gifted prevention and another is to petition the Canadian teacher, choreographer and performer whose work has government to manufacture and export generic anti- redefined where dance takes place and who can dance. retroviral “fixed-dose combination” drugs. These drugs Her commitment is both to the art of dance and to the combine three drugs in one tablet, need to be taken only human element in art-making. In her work, she builds twice a day and have fewer side effects. He compared community, encourages personal insight and these to brand-name drugs that need to be taken six choreographs dances that have been called visionary, times a day and produce more marked side effects. profound and revelatory. Canadians need to encourage the government to make Liz Lerman’s keynote speech at the Symposium’s the “fixed-dose” drugs available. lunchtime break was a valuable and very inspiring Speaking about Africa, Mr. Lewis also said, “If there is opportunity for delegates to learn more about the salvation to be found, it will come also through the power underlying philosophy that guides the way she and her of cultural expression because that’s what unites the organization work. As she says, both have been continent; that is what people rely on when they are committed to “exploring the relationship between attempting to convey messages.” professional artists and community life, and to the principle that each is made better when informed by the other.” 20 I The EARTH Symposium Liz spoke about the frustration of her own dance Amazon village where she experienced a society that was education, perhaps still experienced by many deeply connected to, and respectful of, the earth. This contemporary artists. Dance is divided into many visit sparked her and a group of friends to form ECO. categories: ballet, folk, modern, post-modern, etc. She told us that when she was living in New York City, there With resounding energy and passion, Severn defined the was even a “downtown” post-modern style, not to be word, “environment.” She feels that when people think of confused with the “uptown” post-modern style. All this the environment they think of “something out there…and division was further compounded by strong opinions they think of crazy old David Suzuki.” (Both of her parents about what a dance artist could and could not do. In the were in the audience.) “They don’t think of global U.S., at that time, you couldn’t get a college degree in economic interactions, about what we breathe, eat, or education and choreography; you had to choose between throw away. The environment is where we exist.” She the two. Institutions were built around definitions that urged the audience to “dare to walk the talk” and dictated the practices of artists, limiting their potential. suggested that we should be self-aware of every aspect Liz’s experiences within these institutions influenced her of our daily lives that has an impact on the sustainability commitment to build a humane organization where of the earth, from our food to our clothes, from the everyone gets to learn and grow, not only the person transportation we use, to the work we do. Severn also in charge. talked about the growing networks of activists from around the globe who are working together, often using While she doesn’t have a problem with definitions or the Internet, to reverse the process of destruction of our categories per se, they have contributed to a lack of natural world. communication between practitioners. This has led to the construction of a hierarchy of values that places the She often hears, she said, “Oh, you’re one of those concert work done by a dance artist on a higher level people who wants to change the world,” to which she than that of an artist who works in community or in replies, “We are already changing the world, but we have educational settings. Her desire is to see a shift from that the choice of how we are changing the world.” strong vertical axis of a value system to a more equitable horizontal plane. As she said, “This way the cutting edge is much wider.” Liz sees her work and that of her company take place on this horizontal plane, one that Panels and Discussions includes work done in studios, on stage and in community settings. She sees herself moving easily between the permeable membranes of these settings and Working In A War Zone works along this continuum as it eventually curves to Alvaro Restrepo, Colombia, Nicholas Rowe, form a circle. West Bank, Palestine/Israel, Osman Benk Liz also talked about the “three standards” that she uses Sankoh, Sierra Leone, Anja Susa, Serbia, Tom to evaluate her work. She asks if the dancers who are Sandborn, Canada (facilitator) doing the dance are 100 per cent committed, whether they know why they are doing what they’re doing, and Osman Benk Sankoh from Sierra Leone was absent whether some form of revelation takes place. because his visa to Canada was denied. Tom Sandborn facilitated a discussion during which delegates from the West Bank, Colombia and Serbia Severn Cullis Suzuki shared their stories and the group engaged in some very Severn Cullis Suzuki became actively involved in moving dialogue. environmental and social justice work at a very young age. When she was nine years old, she founded the Gathering in a large circle, each of the 60 participants Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO), and later stated his/her name and offered a perspective about the spoke at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Since that relationship between art and war that came from time, Ms. Cullis Suzuki has established herself as a personal experience. Their stories revealed how passionate speaker, presenter, television host and writer. strategies of living in war zones can be an art form in She recently earned a B.Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary itself; how art can have healing intent; and how it can Biology from Yale University and continues to speak at guide us through a therapeutic process of rehabilitation. schools and corporations and at many conferences and The group spoke about art for the forgotten, art that helps international meetings. She is especially passionate about us to remember. People described art that can scream encouraging young people to speak out for their future. across the divide to communicate the pain and suffering of war and they talked about the art of resistance, art that Severn talked about peak moments in her life that have fights against occupation, persecution and oppression. helped to catalyze her interest in environmental and Others mentioned art as propaganda and art that can social justice issues. These include early childhood change citizens into warriors or pacifists and spoke about experiences with her family. She described a visit to an art that can deny reality. The EARTH Symposium I 21 Art is used in education for peace-building and dialogue of the body itself in his approach to the creation of and can become another language of social forums. It can transformative work. create a positive space for children who cannot understand play without violence. Art can create common Major discussion then centred around the devaluing of art cause and it can create empathy. It can serve as the work in community and the lack of funding support for conscience of a society. these important, very diverse, forms of art practice. Restrepo mentioned that his organization rarely uses the Someone in the group talked about the fact that war is all word “art” when applying for funding. around us, be it war against cuts to social programs in Vancouver, against poverty and disease, wars against the After more dialogue, including an interesting environment, the defence of basic human rights, ethnic conversation about how “the foot is connected to the conflicts, or battles to change the effects of economic head” (i.e., the body to the mind), participants thanked globalization. each other across the circle for the work they are doing in the world and at the Symposium. They honoured each Anja Susa from Serbia told the story of her theatre other’s tales of suffering and stories of hope and success. company for children, challenging the idea of what This was a very moving session. theatre for young people should be, depict and evoke. She spoke about the need to create theatre that comes from the real lives and imaginations of the people in her Freedom To Speak society, one that has endured war and that continues to Tony Le Nguyen, Australia and Vietnam, Mark be divided. She talked about the unwillingness of many Teh, , Mort Winston, U.S.A., Pun Siu-fai, to look at their own society in honest and direct ways and of how theatre often does not challenge this denial. She China, Tom Sandborn, Canada (facilitator) also talked of the success she has experienced when Tom Sandborn facilitated a panel and discussion about presenting work for young people that more accurately censorship, safety and strategies, with delegates from reflected their lives. Malaysia, Vietnam/Australia, China, and the U.S.A. “Like most of you, I didn’t have much choice about where I was From the West Bank, Nicholas Rowe spoke passionately born,” said Dr. Mort Winston, preferring to think of of a land so overwhelmed by war that art had himself as a citizen of the Earth before a being a citizen of disappeared. Now, he struggles to convince others in the the United States. He outlined basic principles of human city of Ramallah that art in this war zone is of real value. rights and their historical evolution, giving the group an He talked about the changes he has seen resulting from excellent overview of international conventions and the dance work that addresses some of the very basic work that is going on worldwide to defend these emotional and physical needs of young people who live principles. He discussed the decreased free flow of ideas in the refugee camps. His work, he said, was not about and people across borders since the events of 9/11 and making peace but about helping people live with the the increased threats to basic rights that are occurring reality of war. He spoke about the many challenges faced now in the U.S., as well as in other parts of the world. His by the community within which he is working, from presentation illustrated the complexity of international freedom of movement to basic health care. He talked cooperation and the need for vigilance and creativity in about how many youth do not know body language that defending and promoting human rights. is not rooted in violent or aggressive gestures. He also mentioned how the fact that 30 delegates (from Africa, The other three panellists were somewhat more India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) had been denied visas to optimistic, describing issues of censorship as borders to Canada clearly demonstrated another aspect of a world push as they outlined how they’ve learned to work within at war. severe situations of censorship. Pun Siu-fai said he feels that many youth in China are very submissive to From Colombia, and out of the body of Alvaro Restrepo, authority and are self-censoring to a disturbing degree. in a silent and powerful dance he performed in the centre Still, he does not give up hope, believing that the next of the circle, came the question, “What is the War Spirit? fifty years will see significant change and the What are the seeds of war?” After he danced, Restrepo development of stronger resistance to censorship. He talked about the “macabre dialogue” emerging between feels that art is a necessary tool for change since “artists his country, with the highest murder rate in the world, have that space to move.” and , with the highest suicide rate in the world. Colegio del Cuerpo, the school he co-founded and directs, Twenty-three-year-old Mark Teh set the stage with an does remarkable work with displaced and disadvantaged overview of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where university youth in Cartagena. As the new director of the Hamburg students are not allowed to be active in politics; Festival in Germany, he also talked about the theme for newspapers are owned by the ruling political party; and next year’s event, to be called Body Mirror World and citizens can be detained for up to two years without went on to describe a large public ritual that he had explanation. Mark discussed the challenges of the created in Colombia. Finally, he talked about the centrality overwhelming and absurd censorship that has plagued

22 I The EARTH Symposium theatre productions for the last few years. Plays cannot ways artists in Africa are working to combat the AIDS mention race, religion, ethnicity, policies, laws, nudity, pandemic. Central to the discussion was the notion of art royalty or “anyone dead or alive” and theatre scripts as an interactive process. Dr. Louise Bourgault spoke have to “pass” three committees of censors. Artists have about AIDS murals and the educational theatre group taken to working with more movement-based, non-verbal called Dramaide, which fights against AIDS using techniques to “bypass” the system. He attempts to push improvisational theatre. She explained how theatre helps limits and is working to have the censorship he is fighting people from all levels in the community find a common recognized as an infringement on human rights. ground and become comfortable sharing their stories about how HIV/AIDS has affected their lives and their Tony Le Nguyen described how Vietnam has freedoms loved ones. She emphasized that art encourages group that are not afforded in such places as Australia or power and action. Canada. In Vietnam you “can piss anywhere you like, can drive scooter bikes anywhere you like and you can sell Brigid Schutz and her organization, arrep, use puppetry to your food anywhere you like.” On the other hand, harsh reach and educate audiences. Puppetry has the power to censorship rules over what can be performed on stage. address taboo matters, such as sex education, in a non- As Vietnam opens up, he sees freedom of expression threatening way. This approach is fun and colourful for issues becoming more openly discussed. But in the young people, and, at the same time, enables the artists present, doing theatre work on issues like HIV/AIDS is to approach sometimes shocking information without problematic. “Working in theatre in Vietnam,” Tony alienating audiences. When this form was initially explained, “can be a bit like doing Seinfeld in Vietnam – unsuccessful with older youth, Schutz modified and re- doing theatre about nothing.” He is determined to gently focused the content to allow it to become more relevant push the limits of what he can do. to them. The use of these puppets can appeal even to adults as it helps them to suspend their beliefs and make room for new ideas. HIV/AIDS and the Arts in Africa Michele Schiess discussed the importance of Brigid Schutz, South Africa, Michele Schiess, performance and disclosure. She explained that South Africa, Dr. Louise Bourgault, U.S.A., Max music and drama give people the power to speak openly Wyman, Canada (facilitator) about some of the unspoken issues in African cultures. She pointed out that in Africa, where HIV is “running Munyaradzi Muzenda from Zimbabwe and Jackson riot,” the arts sensitize people to their environment and Ndawula from Uganda were absent as they were denied help to start a dialogue about AIDS, “encouraging entry visas to Canada. people who have been holding in their terror, allowing Facilitated by Max Wyman, this panel of delegates from them to speak.” South Africa and the U.S. explored the many innovative

The EARTH Symposium I 23 This open dialogue was very lively and centred mainly Moccasin Flats, which is created and produced around the ways artists are changing dangerous, exclusively by First Nations people and is designed, in uninformed perspectives and behaviours. Knowing how part, to engage its audiences with First Nations’ issues very challenging life is for so many people in Africa, it and perspectives. Saul is from Australia and heads an was energizing to learn of the ways artists are helping to organization that produces projects with and for create positive change. Australian youth, using new web-based technologies to distribute their creative ideas. His major project, noise, is an Australian national media arts festival that showcases A Dialogue with Liz Lerman writing, animation, e-works, images, moving pictures, DJ sets, ‘zines, spoken word and new and re-mixed music, She walked around, introduced herself and shook all created by young Australians and experienced by a everyone’s hand. She took off her shoes and asked the national audience of over 15 million. Stasko hails from group members to introduce themselves. And so the Toronto and coordinates projects designed to take back dialogue began. Topics ranged from funding issues to public space by using cultural expression. She also working with senior citizens, to issues in education and produces books, ‘zines and various forms of specialization. It was a diverse group from many culture jamming. backgrounds and places around the globe. Yet Liz managed to connect these subjects with her profound A number of important questions were raised. How can comments, linking ideas with her own work and with new technologies introduce new ideas to youth? How do more general contexts. Her anecdotes were captivating we deal with personal expression that enters the public and inspirational. arena and is not considered to be “excellent” or even “good” art? How do we deal with funding bodies that A debate began: specialization versus interdisciplinary may want to constrict or channel our creative voices? work in the arts. Salient points came from all corners of Finally, how do we deal with issues of technological the room. The dialogue was connected, friendly and accessibility? varied. Images of Venn diagrams and shorelines were useful, visceral, metaphors; poetry became another Throughout the discussion, participants often returned to language in comments such as “the body is the bridge” the subject of inclusivity and of the need to push existing and “the mind occupies the space in between every cell.” boundaries of forms and content of expression and of participation. This expansion was felt to be necessary in Liz led the conversation through many postmodern ideas order to nurture creative movements around the world, like a fluid dance. She wove her own ideas and questions creating effective networks that bring together in and out of the spaces created by the participants in the communities of like-minded people, regardless of their dialogue. She was the bridge as she continued to engage resources, backgrounds or location. people in meaningful dialogue. She listened intensely, intently, smiling. Her ability to translate multi-layered thoughts into simple language was astounding; she was Visual Arts Circle reachable, so versatile. Our time was up. We left the session with new questions, provoking us to think about Diego Samper, Canada and Colombia pedagogy and the place, role and importance of art in The sounds of rain pattering on foliage, rolling thunder the community. and waves crashing on the shore enveloped a small group of strangers gathered together inside a circular dwelling. It was not protection from the elements that Media/New Media brought us together. This shelter was designed for the Carly Stasko and Laura Milliken, Canada, purpose of communion. Brandon Saul, Australia, Max Wyman, “Shelter” is the name given to the architectonic Canada (facilitator) installation created by artist Diego Samper for the In this session, panel members from Canada and Symposium. The tent-like structure is made of bamboo Australia talked about new and effective ways in which poles formed in circular patterns to create a dome that is youth are engaging with conventional and new media held together by cord, rope and tensile strength. This forms. Max Wyman, who has spent the last 30 years in “skeleton” is covered with translucent fabric that had Vancouver writing and speaking about contemporary arts been naturally weathered by rust and other natural and culture, was the facilitator. Laura Milliken, Carly substances. The interior space contained a circle of mats. Stasko and Brandon Saul are all active in projects Bamboo poles hung in a curtain at the entrance and a trio designed to open up the realm of personal expression to of large stones sat in the centre. Several curious-looking a broader and more inclusive range of people. assemblages were made of a length of cord suspended from the ceiling. Stacks of small bamboo rods of different Milliken is a Toronto producer whose company, Big Soul, lengths were pierced by the cord, which was anchored to has recently been working on a television series called the ground by stones. Inspired by similar looking

24 I The EARTH Symposium aboriginal toys, these assemblages lent an additional tactile and whimsical element to the installation. If one lifted the bamboo sticks up the cord, and let them drop, they clacked together all the way back down, creating unpredictable and delightful musical sounds.

Diego Samper’s use of natural materials for Shelter is rooted in eight years of living with indigenous people in Colombia. For two of these years, he lived in a remote village in the Amazon rainforest in a similar structure. There he discovered how these shelters are used not only for protection, but also as central gathering places for the whole community, places where daily communal life and ritual take place.

Diego integrated his presentation with an open dialogue. Thoughts and feelings created by sitting inside the An interesting tangent to the conversation, and an Shelter were shared. We talked about the need to reclaim example of creative economic thinking, was Professor public spaces, about culture jamming, about community Winston’s description of “mission-based investing.” art and about creating art in today’s political climate. We Rather than avoiding investing in companies that do not were a diverse assortment of people, connected to one adopt acceptable ethical standards (“value-based another in the warm and meditative atmosphere that investing”), socially-conscious organizations use their Shelter offered us. capital to invest in unethical corporations. By forming shareholder coalitions, these organizations gain clout and consequently can influence the policies of major Writers’ Circle corporations. Professor Winston brought up a recent John Lazarus example in which Amnesty International led a coalition that invested in Exxon Mobil. The coalition wanted the The Writers’ Circle, led by Professor John Lazarus from company to make an explicit commitment to recognize Queens University, was an intriguing informal discussion labour rights and conventions. Exxon Mobil agreed, that touched on a variety of issues and challenges facing adopting the resolution put forward by the coalition. writers. Drawing on Liz Lerman’s speech of the day before, Professor Lazarus began the discussion by asking participants to share their own experiences of trying to balance career and personal obligations while still making contributions to society. He began by discussing his own Environmental challenges as a professor and playwright. By teaching future artists the value of creative and critical thinking, he feels he is helping shape a future generation of artists and Social Justice who will produce high-quality work that is potentially meaningful, relevant and satisfying. Workshops

Dr. Morton Winston spoke about his writing over many years on human rights issues in national and Native Youth Activism international contexts. As a professor, he teaches courses Clayton Thomas-Muller, Brennan Manoakeesick that address philosophical and ethical issues that surround “hot” topics such as abortion, animal rights and and Miali-Elise Coley, First Nations in Canada gender equality. He finds that a great challenge to At the time Columbus sailed, “India” was called community activism lies in how little economic value is “Hindustan.” A man of traditional European learning, attached to voluntary work one does for the greater good, Columbus observed the frequent praying and worship of as opposed to the financial rewards of traditional the gods by the indigenous peoples in the Caribbean employment in our economic system. island area and joined the words “id” (child) and “Dios” (God) to originate the term “Indian.” Thus began the Delegates from a variety of backgrounds, among them, creation of a systematic process of homogenization and actors, journalists and community activists, continued the dis-empowerment of indigenous peoples, a process with a lively discussion that centred around writing about of seeing the world through a “white” lens. environmental and social justice issues and the difficulties of making a living while living a life of activism. The Surveying the history of native activism, the workshop group agreed that it is a major challenge to find creative presenters pointed out that environmental destruction is a and workable solutions to the dilemma of keeping food human-rights issue for societies that are connected to the on the table. The EARTH Symposium I 25 Your Food, Your Water: What You Might Want To Know Check Your Head, Canada

This interactive workshop, presented by two members of Check Your Head, explored issues surrounding genetically-modified food and looked at the present state of our global water supply and its distribution. Participants discussed food security and the control of water.

Genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) have had their DNA altered. Myths arise about GMO’s, some false and some true, but because our access to information in the popular media is limited, it is often difficult to understand just what is happening, particularly on a global basis. land culturally, physically, economically and spiritually. It Accurate consumer labelling of food is of concern here in follows that environmental damage resulting from Canada. Except for countries that are part of the European decisions made by those in political and economic power Union, and Japan, there are no laws that require – usually members of a white elite – become a deep companies to list products that contain GMO’s. attack on aboriginal cultures. In response to this dynamic, a group of Inuit youth is taking President George Bush to The world’s water supply, its distribution and the court for the climate changes affecting them in northern privatization of water by large corporations are critical settings as a result of decisions made and executed by issues in every corner of the globe. World water the American government. consumption doubles every ten years and it is believed that by 2025 two-thirds of the global population will be The discussion revealed that there is a great deal of “in- short of water. Canada has 20% of the world’s fresh water. house” work to do. Native youth activists struggle to raise Canadians take their access to clean, drinkable, water for awareness of their history and cultural identity and work granted in a world where the majority do not enjoy this to foster a reconnection to the land within their basic necessity. communities. This occurs in urban centres largely through the networks of urban Friendship Centres that This workshop provided us with new information and provide a family to those who have come from outside gave us sources to continue that learning. It also created the cities. A great deal of internalized oppression must be a sense of urgency about the need for action on these dealt with as people struggle to contend with very strong many critical issues. individual and collective memory. The last residential school in Canada was closed in 1986. As late as 1969, aboriginal peoples in Canada could neither leave their reserves without written permission nor vote. White people must understand and educate each other about white privilege and must support anti-racism work. This is a responsibility held by people who benefit from privileges that are built on stolen land, resources and labour. It was pointed out that asking a white person to understand white privilege is kind of like asking a fish to explain how it breathes under water – “What do you mean? I just breathe!”

The group agreed that there is still a lot of work ahead and left inspired by the affirmation that there is a solid and growing movement of indigenous activism and resistance – and that these groups are working in Globalization 101 solidarity with white people who are taking responsibility Check Your Head, Canada for their privilege. “My name is… and I am from…, South Africa, Vancouver, New England, Toronto, Kenya, Peru, Japan, Nova Scotia, Istanbul, Malaysia, Ottawa, Victoria.…”

Around the circle, 60 participants named the places that they had travelled from to join this conversation about globalization. Despite the geographical distances between

26 I The EARTH Symposium us, we soon became aware of connections to one another, partly as a consequence of the flow of goods and information in our tightly-knit global economy. The workshop gave us facts about economic globalization and how it affects youth in particular. We learned a definition of a living wage – what a person needs to earn to pay for shelter, transportation, food, education, medical care and to create some modest savings. The two facilitators revealed that if a mere dollar were added to the cost of a pair of Nike running shoes, or if NIKE were to offer their workers less than 1% of their profits, all of their employees would earn a living wage.

The gathering was divided into smaller groups, each becoming a government of an imaginary country, charged with bidding against the others in an attempt to win a shoe-production contract with a large company. We named the many consequences of the imbalances we Union rights? Minimum wage? Corporate taxation? are already experiencing, all created by our over- Environmental standards? Minimum ages for workers? consumption of the Earth’s natural resources. Quoting Battling the other countries for the bid, the groups asked from a major study, released in 1990 at the Rio Summit, themselves: “What are our priorities?” and “What are we Garah reminded us that 16,000 scientists from 90 willing to sacrifice to get the bid?” countries around the globe have warned that fundamental changes in patterns of consumption are urgently needed. Within a few decades, without a massive change in these patterns, the Earth will not be able to sustain lives even remotely similar to the ones we have known. It has been estimated that if China and India were to use natural resources at the same level as North America is doing at present, we would need another 34 Earths! Garah shared an interesting fact that Canadians especially need to note: although Statistics Canada reports that 9 out of 10 Canadians rate environmental issues as a top concern, Canada was rated 28th in a list of 29 industrial countries’ environmental practices.

With the group’s consciousness raised and passions In the end, this process was revealed to be a “race to the ignited, Garah presented a video excerpt from David bottom.” A round of applause went up for the one group Suzuki’s series, The Sacred Balance. Suzuki talked about that decided not to bid – instead, the members of that the variety of ways that indigenous peoples understand group created their own alternative economic system and the whole Earth and all life on it as a sacred, single entity. became self-sufficient, inviting the other “countries” to He spoke about how human actions have direct join in trade with them. The session ended with the consequences on that whole and urged that we be provocative questions: “What do I believe are the mindful and responsible in our choices – that we must act priorities? What values do I believe can be sacrificed in with wisdom. Old wisdom has been over-shadowed by the name of profitable commerce?” “modern” ways of understanding the Earth as a machine or mechanism and not as truly alive.

State of the Earth Finally, one of many positive strategies was offered. The Suzuki Foundation has issued a “Nature Challenge” to Suzuki Foundation, Canada people living in the industrialized world. Participants are Promising that she would get to a message of hope at the offered 10 “deceptively simple” steps that we, as citizens end, Krista Garah, from the Suzuki Foundation, began by and consumers, can take. The group was asked to read painting a grim picture of the planet. She described the the list, choose three of the ten steps, and register their “progress” made since the first Earth Day in 1970. Fossil promise to commit to these actions at fuel extraction and consumption, population growth, www.davidsuzuki.org. waste production, air traffic, logging, fishing and mining have all increased, some as much as twelve-fold, in the last 34 years.

The EARTH Symposium I 27 Youth Leadership and Global Citizenship: of the group was asked to imagine themselves as a Putting Ideas Into Action component of either of the two systems. The first participant held one end of the and announced a Youth Millennium Project, Canada component he had chosen, something that could be as The Youth Millennium Project (YMP) hosted a workshop simple as a dandelion or as complex as the health of a to explore three major facets of becoming a leader in whole community. Still holding on to the string, this global citizenship: leading awareness, leading assistance person passed the ball of string to the next participant and leading activity. Participants learned how to they who announced her choice to the group and explained might become a force for global leadership in their how it might be connected to the previous element. communities and around the world. YMP functions Eventually, each person in the circle was connected via primarily as a global network hub to help youth the string to the others. If one person tugged on the communicate with each other in order to create projects string, everyone felt the effect. This amusing game clearly for change. The projects are both youth-conceived and revealed how one system depends on the other and how youth-led and are supported by adults. Whether youth are placing stress on one component of either system created travelling to to record the stories of people stress on everything else. suffering from malnutrition and diabetes, or asking UNICEF for some scrap wood to build desks for children in the Congo, or making sandwiches for homeless people Free Trade – Trade: on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, they are all The Oxfam Canada Coffee Story learning equally valuable lessons about community Michael Zelmer, Canada development and raising social awareness. Fair Trade is a movement that has been around for decades that has become more prominent in the last several years. In this session, participants learned that in conventional trade, the exchange between producers and buyers is rarely fair. In most cases, the person or company buying a product or service is looking for the lowest possible price in order to make the greatest possible profit. This applies whether the buyer owns a small store or is a multinational corporation. For the producer, it often means exploitation, poverty and intolerable working conditions. The workshop group learned that there are fairer alternatives that are economically viable. The example of fairly-traded coffee was described as a system in which coffee is bought directly from farming cooperatives, eliminating the role of the mid-level trader and allowing farmers to earn a fair Environment and Social Justice: living for their labour. The Connections Sierra Youth Coalition, Canada Rights, Wants and Needs This youth-led, interactive workshop given by Kerri Klein UNICEF, Canada from the Sierra Youth Coalition explored issues of inequality and power in our society as a basis for UNICEF hosted a workshop that examined our basic discussing environmental and social concerns, both local needs as rights and demonstrated the links between and global. SYC programs include Sustainable Campus, rights and responsibilities. Participants developed a basic Youth Action Gatherings and biking trips for youth. understanding of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and identified critical physical and One of the activities of the workshop was a game. emotional needs for their basic health and well-being. A Michael Sheely and Kerri Klein used the model of an egg “true or false” game familiarized the participants with to talk about sustainability. The white of the egg UNICEF’s work involving human and children’s rights and represents the ecosystem, including land, materials, the group learned how these rights fall into two water, air and energy. The yolk represents the “people” categories: survival or developmental. Survival rights system, and includes knowledge, community, include housing, food, water and health. Developmental governance, economy and health. The yolk cannot be rights include access to education and freedom of healthy without the white; the belief systems, values and expression. Participants also learned how UNICEF uses paradigms of the yolk affect the white. This the CRC in programs designed to decrease bullying and interconnectedness of the ecosystem to the people racism in schools in the Canadian Maritime provinces. system was illustrated with a ball of string. The members

28 I The EARTH Symposium Privilege/ Oppression: Gender, Class and Race Youth-Driven/Youth-Friendly: Romi Chandra and Sara Kendall, Canada More Than Just Words

Romi Chandra and Sara Kendall, in an interactive process, Spencer Herbert and Rachel Marcuse, Canada helped the group to explore how issues of race, sexuality, Participants joined Spencer Herbert and Rachel Marcuse class and gender can affect and impede our interaction in this youth-led, interactive session to explore the with each other. Chandra and Kendall helped us to concepts of “youth-driven” and “youth-friendly.” The investigate privilege and oppression in both local and session began with the question, “What are the coolest global contexts. We looked at how media representations, and less cool things about being young?” Participants stereotypes and power structures that control them can revealed that having a lot of energy, creativity and taking contribute to systems of racism, sexism, classism, risks fell into the “cool” category, while not being heard, homophobia and other forms of oppression. The creation not having credibility and not knowing yourself very well of an “oppression alphabet” – Appropriation, Bigotry, were some of the disadvantages to being young. Civilization, etc. – revealed multiple layers of this complex Participants were then asked to define what makes picture. Chandra and Kendall explained how children are something youth-friendly. Youth-friendly ingredients blind to differences and drew a human eye on the board. included showing respect in actions and words, like Then, words like “media,” “church” and “pop culture” making eye-contact and handshakes, and avoiding pre- were written over top of the eye, words that spoke of conceived ideas about how young people think and forms of socialization that can prevent us from seeing the behave. Recognizing that a young person’s time is just as world clearly. Through group activities, questioning and valuable as an adult’s time was also considered dialogue, the group looked at how we internalize both important, as was the fact that equality is realized when oppression and privilege, and explored how these issues youth are allotted equal time for discussion and are paid extend out beyond us to global contexts. for work that they do. Next, participants set out to define what it means for something to be truly youth-driven. A youth-driven organization is run by and for youth; youth are given the tools to do a job and the staff act as facilitators. Finally, the group identified and discussed some of the challenges, such as tokenism, that organizations and individuals alike need to overcome if they truly want to be youth-friendly and/or youth-driven.

The EARTH Symposium I 29 Mapping the Issues economically just world would look like to them. At the Environmental Youth Alliance, other end of the page they filled in the blank: “When I work towards social change, I work primarily through my Canada and Femi Foloronso, Nigeria role as ___,” using words or pictures. The group then Femi Folorunso, Nigerian head of Roots and Shoots, Jane discussed each person’s images. In groups of five, Goodall’s organization, was not present as he was denied participants reflected on the pathways for work in social a visa to enter Canada. change that they have each chosen; the challenges/ opportunities they face in their chosen paths; why they Canada’s Environmental Youth Alliance led a mapping have chosen these roles; and whether or not this path is workshop designed to draw out individual and collective working for them. Still in groups, participants explored voices about environmental and social justice issues. We different pathways related to their skills and values, created maps of issues and actions in our local shared what they value/fear/wonder about each pathway, communities as a way to learn about each other’s local and came up with questions to be posed to other people situations and perspectives. These local-asset maps were on different paths. then linked to a global context as a way to understand international action and connection. Eventually the groups came together in a circle and shared their discoveries with the larger group. A strong We were taught two forms of mapping. The first was the message of the workshop was that both imagination and creation of geographical maps that described the place creativity are required to produce space in which social where we live by using layers of text and imagery. Next, change can occur. we outlined our own bodies on paper and filled the insides of these bodies with the issues and concerns that we have for our communities. We stood back and examined these maps, which decorated the wall like Show and Tells gingerbread cookies holding hands. We then added stickers to the maps of others where concerns were similar to our own. Issues of unhealthy environments and Altaf Shaikh from Saathi, India urban gentrification turned out to be recurring themes for this group. To understand what the non-governmental organization, Saathi, does, Altaf Shaikh described the following These mapping exercises sparked a discussion about “art scenario about a youth named Hanif, who lives on the for the purpose of engaging others.” Tina shared her streets of Bombay: When Hanif was twelve, his step- recent mapping project on the Gulf Islands in British mother tortured him by putting chilli peppers in his eyes. Columbia and Jack described his annual costume bike To this day, his eyes have not stopped watering. When he parade in the Philippines that promotes the use of fled his small town to seek a different life and arrived at bicycles. Conversations continued through the lunch the train station in Bombay, he was lost and was soon break as ideas for new projects began taking shape. physically, sexually and mentally exploited and abused. He worked as a garbage picker and made only enough money to buy his daily food. If he earned more, he would be robbed while he slept on the street.

Hanif is one of 50,000 youth who live on Bombay’s streets on their own. (Another 75,000 live in pavement hutments or shanties with one or both partents, but in extremely poor condiditons.) Because Hanif is over the age of 14, there were few organizations around to help him until Saathi was formed. Saathi is unique, because it takes on the challenge of working with youth over 14, an age group that is often seen as too difficult to work with effectively because of the anger and rebellious nature of many of these teenagers. Saathi works on many levels, ranging from directly supporting street youth, to fighting legal and political battles to protect youth from Pathways to Social Change: sexual exploitation. Activism and the Youth Community Now in its eighth year, Saathi tries to connect with young Spencer Herbert and Nadim Kara, Canada people at Bombay railway and bus stations where fleeing Each person was presented with a large blank sheet of youth arrive in the city and become easy targets for paper as they entered the room. Participants were asked recruiters in the sex industry, including producers of to draw what a socially, environmentally and pornography. In addition to their work on the street, Saathi also runs a youth centre where street youth can 30 I The EARTH Symposium acquire a non-formal education, learn how to save money for the future and get legal protection.

A staff of 44 works annually with 600 youth, teaching them new skills that enable them to lead healthier lives, to look to the future with hope and to overcome feelings of hate and revenge they may harbour. Saathi encourages them to participate in a wide variety of activities such as training for marathons and participating in non- performing theatre. Theatre is used as an effective tool for healing, offering youth a chance to grow and to gain confidence and independence.

This is very challenging work. Altaf Shaikh and other Saathi staff have often faced situations where their personal safety has been at risk. And they are always tune from her own culture – about a frog! The parallels facing the challenge of persuading the Bombay were amazing and this exchange was a clear and government to take more responsibility for the plight of emotional celebration and sharing of our traditions. these young citizens.

Syed Mizanur Rahman, Ch’aska Anqa Ninawaman, Peru Syed talked about his work in Bangladesh with TREE In an intimate setting, Ch’aska asked the group to move (Theatre for Research Education and Empowerment). in closer, to create a circle where they could share TREE focuses on education through theatre and other arts thoughts, ideas and energy. She took the group on a in a broad mix of communities. He showed the group journey with stories and slides from her community of three very arresting posters that were created after Chisikata, near Cuzco, in Peru. Ch’aska spoke about how lengthy workshop/intervention processes in three her educational work is based in her Inca ancestry and Bangladeshi communities. The posters sparked a told us about the indigenous youth movement in Cuzco. discussion about the important issues these posters Her work is rooted in a desire to teach youth in her spoke to: increasing women’s employment as a way to community about their ancestry, culture and traditions. reduce child labour; the challenges facing transgender To facilitate this, Ch’aska went back to her own people; and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. community to learn about the traditional philosophies and stories of her culture. She then began teaching TREE’S theatre workshops and performances are children and young people at a school created to designed to create new ways of learning and to create rediscover these cultural origins. positive change in many different contexts, from fishing communities to brothels. Through quiet integration into As participants looked at slides of Andean mountains, community life, TREE is able to create significant changes Ch’aska explained their spiritual significance. Many in attitudes and foster new insight as it works with others Quechuan philosophies are based in nature. Three levels for positive social and economic change. Their tools of cosmology are closely tied to nature: the upper world include theatre, visual arts and weekly radio dramas and (sun-father and moon-mother); the central world (the discussions that are heard by thousands of people. present natural environment); and the underworld Social barriers against artistic practices can be (ancestors and spiritual world). This became clear to the challenging in Bangladesh, but TREE’s work has been group as everyone gazed at a beautiful panorama of two acknowledged and supported by both government and holy mountains that contain the eternal energy and the private sector. strength of the Father and Mother.

The arts and the environment are fused together in the Jack Yabut, Philippines most natural ways. Death is celebrated through dance; the deceased metaphorically re-enter the mountains from When was the last time you saw a firefly in the city? They whence they came. The group listened intently as Ch’aska don’t fly around anymore in Manila because of pollution – continued to talk about climbing mountains, collecting ice except once a year during the Tour of the Fireflies. The and singing, dancing and chanting throughout the one- Firefly Brigade and the Philippine Educational Theatre month-long Festival of Snow. Association (PETA) are trying to make life in the city sustainable by combining the concept of bicycle activism The session ended in a wonderful way. A young with a modern opera that tours the Philippines on wheels. indigenous man from Turtle Island offered a traditional Jack Yabut, the organizer of this initiative, says that the song as a thank you to Ch’aska, who responded with a two-wheel project was built on the belief that “artists can

The EARTH Symposium I 31 easily become environmentalists due to their capacity Fabrizio Crisafulli, Italy to love.” While the Tour of the Fireflies (a yearly Fabrizio Crisafulli believes in using light not only to light street cycling event) is now in its sixth year, this new, performers on stage, but also as the centre of the visual moving theatre performance tour will last for six experience of theatre – the “object” to be seen. Light is months beginning in November 2004 and will cover the action. In his ongoing work titled Theatre of Places 3,000 kilometres. and in his previous work, Crisafulli also looks to natural In the opera, Cantata Alitaptat, cycling artists are met by sites and locations for direction and inspiration. He people from the local community who cycle together to believes that these places are not merely sets, but are the performance space. (Before the troupe arrives, young “theatre” in themselves, replete with memories, sounds local artists have been invited to participate in the event and movement. One of his company’s plays was created and workshops have taken place for several weeks.) As a for a 19th century theatre in Tuscany where the audience prelude to the performance – and to advertise the show – sat on the stage while the theatre’s balconies became the a local person pedals a stationary bike in the town square central setting for a piece about theatre life and the habits that generates enough energy to light up a tree that is of theatre goers. hung with many lights; the tree represents the natural Part of the aesthetic of the Theatre of Places is to use habitat of fireflies. The audience that gathers to watch this positive, rather than functional, light as set design. Actors spectacle is encouraged to dance along with the on stage interact with the light as part of the central performers and to come to the show that follows. content of the performance, rather than it being an added Jack Yabut explained that PETA and the Firefly Brigade element, designed at the end of a rehearsal process. are doing the government’s work. In a country where U.S. Crisafulli’s company, Campagnia Il Pudore Bene, in Vista, $400 million is spent annually on health problems that creates plays and exhibitions where light itself is an actor. are a result of pollution, the Philippine government Crisafulli has also taught set design for many years. He should, itself, be promoting cycling and sustainability. believes that people often study theatre design without Yabut added that The Firefly Brigade never officially asks exploring the properties of light as principal elements of for permission from the local authorities to occupy the performance. Several illustrated books about Crisafulli’s streets for their cycling manifestations, they invite the work are available in Italian. government. As he says, “the Fireflies are a tool for the government. We do the government’s work and the government would be smart to participate with us.” It turns out that government participation is growing. Films Presented during A grand finale is set to take place in April, 2005, when the many communities that have participated in the Cantata Breaking New Ground Alitaptat will cycle to Manila to advocate for healthier communities. Yabut hopes to develop an international Four films were shown at the Symposium, each dealing project for “reclaiming the streets” in which community with social justice issues. members will cycle together to advocate for safe habitats for all species, whether it be fireflies, butterflies, crickets The Flute Player or human beings. Jocelyn Glatzer/U.S./2003 At the age of nine, Arn Chorn-Pond was thrust into the darkness of Cambodia’s ghastly Killing Fields. Arn’s musical talent kept him from perishing in the genocide

32 I The EARTH Symposium that took the lives of 2 million Cambodians. The Flute The Proposed Sessions/Dialogues Player is a testament to one man’s triumph over tragedy. • How do we build a culture of peace in B.C.? A Monk’s Voice • How do we use the body and the creative process to Natalie Ducharme/Canada/2002 see with both lenses and develop a voice for a just and For half a century, Tibet has been under the shadow sustainable world? (We will move!) of Chinese rule and oppression. This is one monk’s • What will you take away from the EARTH Symposium? story as he works to preserve his religion, his people and (A play group) his culture. • How? Where? When? Why? Does healing happen in This is What Democracy Looks Like our work to create a more just and sustainable world? Seattle Independent Media Center • Global subway party? Any suggestions for a good date and Big Noise Films/U.S./2000 to do a global event? Would you like to see footage of Toronto subway parties? Celebrate public transit, break Set at the World Trade Organization protest in Seattle, down barriers and reclaim public spaces! Washington, this documentary contains footage from • How can we improve our drama group and help youth over 100 activists. Narrated by Susan Sarandon and use drama to reach out to the community? Michael Franti. • Who would like to see the work I do? – Manisha Mehta Inside Your Threads from Vidya in Ahmedebad, Gujurat, India. Tania Natscheff/U.S./2003 • Is art the art of asking hard questions? This documentary examines the working conditions • How can theatre play a major role in economics? of “sweatshop” employees in Mexico and Bangladesh. It features powerful interviews with workers as • How are NGOs and community groups working for they struggle to earn a living wage in several social justice in Pakistan? clothing factories. • How can we move society toward embracing environmental sustainability? (a.k.a. Life) • How can the performing arts contribute to a wider Open Space Afternoon understanding of a conflict? • How can we use forum theatre to create just laws and Facilitated by William Cleveland government policy? • Are there any individuals or organizations interested in Delegates came together for this free-flowing afternoon of working or performing in Pakistan? What are the inquiry and dialogue on Saturday afternoon. The possibilities? facilitator, Bill Cleveland, started the session by asking • How can we create university courses/curricula to each of us to say a single word that encapsulated what promote social justice in North America? we were feeling at that moment. A rich and moving poetic list emerged as the microphone was handed • How can we make the use of arts for intervention around the room. “Joy… Solidarity… Hope… more participatory? Expectation… Courage…Wonder….” • How do we get people who don’t want to perform, to perform? Mr. Cleveland then explained how the following four • How do we help youth feel comfortable attending hours would be led by participants themselves, under the adult-led sessions and adults feel comfortable umbrella of the thematic question: “How can we best attending youth-led sessions? integrate the practice of art into our work to create a more just and environmentally-sustainable world?” • How can we support youth to create their own culture and their own art-making processes? A blank timetable on the wall was quickly filled with • Who would like to hear First Nation (Peru) stories? proposals from individual delegates, each in the form of a • How can the ethics of “DIY culture” or sustainable arts question that they wanted to explore with others. be implemented in international or global Participants were then set free to attend the sessions that movements? sparked their interest, each hosted by the person who had proposed that session. Four simple, yet important, • Would you like to join me in a bicycle firefly theatre co- principles guided the process: “Whoever comes are the production? right people. Whatever happens is the only thing that • What does dance mean to you? How can dance make could happen. Whenever it starts is always the right time. you feel good? When it’s over it’s over.” • Who would like to join me in a wordless cross-cultural game? (From a Japanese delegate)

The EARTH Symposium I 33 • Any interest in hearing about an M.A. Theatre and strenuous to hold on to these chopsticks than it seems! Media for Development course in the U.K.? Once the group has mastered this first stage, Nobuko • Would you like to know more about an internship adds more people to the pairs, until lines of six people programme in India? are weaving in and out of one another, joined only by utensils more commonly associated with sushi. In this We offer descriptions of three of these sessions and case, laughter often reduced success! By the end of the excerpts from the verbal reports that we heard when the game, a line of 20 people were precariously tangled and whole group re-assembled four hours later at the end of having a great deal of fun. This exercise was simple and the afternoon. easy, yet it promoted sensitivity to the energy of others and broke down barriers in a comfortable way, while creating a vivid awareness of how our actions affect one another.

Nobuko, a funny and warm person who exudes infectious enthusiasm, belongs to a group of artists who promote theatre in Japanese schools, a luxury that Canadian children take for granted, but which is surprisingly rare in Japan. There are few forums for self-expression like today’s Symposium or even end-of-term high school plays. Before we left, some participants noted that they had done a similar theatre exercise before, but that materials differed from country to country. Canada substitutes bamboo poles for the chopsticks, while in the U.K., they use shorter sticks or two pieces of paper. Adrian Jackson aptly commented that the Vancouver version should employ coffee cups.

Three of the Sessions Would you like to know more about an Who would like to join me for a internship program in India? (Altaf Shaikh, India) wordless cross-cultural drama workshop? Saathi – “companion” in Hindi – works with street youth (Nobuko Okamoto, Japan) aged 14 to 22 on the streets of Mumbai (Bombay). The NGO started its internship program a few years ago when Nobuko Okamoto teaches drama to Japanese school ISIC, the organization that gives out the ubiquitous children. She finds that, as the children hit the high international student cards, approached them. The first school years, they become much less willing to express intern is now part of the full-time staff and they have themselves. Tension between girls and boys, and the since developed the program into a structured imperative to look cool, combined with the rigidity of experience. Japanese society, hinder participation in anything that is physically expressive. So Nobuko works on the spaces The internship lasts at least three months, half of which between people, helping them to bridge those difficult the intern spends getting familiar with the various gaps. As she says, “Teenagers don’t want to do what projects that Saathi coordinates and the other half spent others don’t do. Nor do they want to do what others do!” in Kerala on land bought by the organization to develop and re-forest as a means of having a stable source of To counter this stiffness, Nobuko has developed a game funding for its outreach activities. The latter include crisis that uses the simplest of tools – chopsticks! In pairs, intervention, the operation of group homes, and people hold the chopsticks cooperatively, using just the prevention, as well as newer projects like outdoor tip of the index finger to connect one’s chopstick to education, in which youth are invited to discover another’s, the partners moving around the room. If you themselves through various activities like rock-climbing, move too far away from your partner, the chopsticks will rappelling and hiking. fall; if you’re too close, your arms bend awkwardly and the task becomes harder. The aim is to sense your The organization believes strongly in empowerment. partner’s intention, moving with them wherever they Group homes are operated on the basis that youth should want to go, however fast or slow. If you drop your learn how to become self-sufficient and they are thus chopsticks, you become a rock, crouched treacherously required to pay for their accommodation. Saathi pays the on the floor; people walk backwards a lot in this exercise deposits and makes sure, through loans and forced and clumps of rocks quickly lead to more rocks! Nobuko savings programs, that financial need doesn’t mean the adds many elements, such as speeding up and starting loss of lodgings. The land Saathi bought is situated in from a position low on the floor. It’s more difficult and one of the six most biodiverse places on earth and is

34 I The EARTH Symposium Manisha spoke about the courage of the women who work with her – how they struggle to improve their rights and to gain economic independence and about how hope is created through a collective process. This was a most impressive session that showed us clearly how amazing and critically-important work can be accomplished in the most difficult of situations.

A Sampling of the Events, Ideas, Questions and “Helpful Hints” that Came out of the Open Space Afternoon Some Ideas about Work with Youth being developed with a view to restore and preserve this • The impact of inter-generational work can be far- precious gem of nature. Interns thinking about applying reaching and productive for everyone. should be aware that the work is hands-on and intense. • Co-facilitation by a youth and an adult together has the Interns are responsible for travel and accommodation and potential to close communication gaps between the will be asked to keep a daily logbook. There is a 10-day two groups. “Youth” is a state of mind; curiosity and training session upon arrival. the ability to play exist in every age group. One can be an “expert and a beginner” at the same time. “Youth- For more information, please see their website at friendly” can be extended to the larger notion of www.saathi.org or e-mail Altaf at “people-friendly.” It can be very useful and [email protected] illuminating for everyone when youth role-play the parts of adults with power. • A significant element of good work with youth helps Who would like to see the work I do? them to discover their own power. The “invitation” to (Manisha Mehta, India) live a creative life should extend past early childhood Manisha Mehta talked about and showed video of her into adolescence and throughout adulthood. work with VIDYA, an organization in Ahmedebad, Gujurat, • Independent artists who work outside of institutions India, that she created to address the many difficult social with youth have a major role to play in the field. issues faced by women and girls in the region. • One way to engage and empower youth who are resistant to join group work (“too cool” or too Because boy children are traditionally valued more than frightened) is to ask them to help the facilitator rather girls, a dramatic gender imbalance has developed, with than kicking them out – e.g., give them the stopwatch. many fewer girls than boys, especially in poor and rural communities. Deeply-entrenched social preferences and • To increase participation, while recruiting youth or practices have led to a pattern of boy children receiving while inside the artistic process, it can be helpful to superior treatment in terms of nutrition, health care and identify the “leader” of the group, the person that the education. other youth are really listening to. Try to bring these individuals on-side so that they will lead the others VIDYA attempts to not only change attitudes, but to into the work together. change behaviour in concrete ways, including: reducing • It is often much more productive to work with the the abortion of female fetuses; improving girls’ access to body before any words are used. Physical expression school (they often are required to leave by the age of often comes from a more directly-accessed source twelve); reducing female child abuse; reducing girl child than the intellect. As an example, one exercise labour; and improving nutrition and medical care, involves asking people to laugh “for no reason” and including immunization. In short, VIDYA aims to then to ask them what they were feeling or thinking “promote long-term improvement in the situation of girl while they were laughing. children whose improved status will assist in the • A great many of the Symposium workshops used the alleviation of poverty.” body as the starting point (even if not the central VIDYA’s staff of 18 works closely with many volunteers. source) for the work. (Examples of this can be found (All of the people who work with Manisha live in the throughout the workshop descriptions in this report.) slums of this city of seven million.) Manisha uses theatre • Sometimes a very quick group process, such as as one of the main tools of her educational and having people throw words and sounds out into the community-building work. Large audiences attend the room (with movement), and then quickly turning this group’s performances – 500,000 people recently saw into a rhythmic chant, can bring a group together in a one show! simple and direct way.

The EARTH Symposium I 35 A Sampling of the Information-Sharing that Occurred • Questions were asked in a discussion about art and • Cha’ska told traditional stories of her people and talked refugees. These were about how long it takes people about the powerful roles women are playing in her to become “un-refugees” – how people want to define community. themselves and how governments define them and • David Diamond showed work from a recent theatre other questions about whether art “ever really project, Practicing Democracy, that will help create changes anything” and how art is used to deal with new municipal social policy in Vancouver, one instance conflict at many different levels. of the many examples of the direct impact that social • The group of delegates from Yokohama talked about activist art is making. the rigidity of Japanese society and of the reluctance • Alex Mavrocordatos talked about the M.A degree at all official levels to acknowledge the huge problems Program in Theatre and Media for Development that is that youth are experiencing. They showed videotape housed at the University of Winchester in the U.K. of a few of the light, large dance/drama productions they have produced that bring together children, youth • Shoaib Iqbal told people about the large festival that and older performers, work that indirectly tries to deal Punjab Lok Rahs produced last year during which over with some of the issues, but avoid direct discussion of 500 traditional artists performed – and invited them. A 16-year-old from the group, the lead delegates to join the 2005 festival. performer in a recent production, described how she • Jack Yabut identified potential new Firefly Project and her friends are trying to create new work that partners in Japan and Canada. challenges this silence and talked about the success of • Carly Stasko proposed a day-long global celebration their successes and about the barriers that are making to reclaim public space and suggested that all the them create and produce “on their own.” events be documented and posted on The EARTH Bill Cleveland closed the afternoon by suggesting that Project website. “Five years from now, you may well remember this • Altaf Shaikh talked about three-month internships at gathering as an event that was the beginning of Saathi, half of that time spent in Bombay, working with something important.” He urged all of the delegates street youth and half in Kerala, working with youth on to remember, to commemorate and to celebrate their an environmental regeneration project. time together. • Louise Bourgault shared some of her conversations with university students who talked about the irrelevance of much of their education, stressing the shortcomings of traditional text-based learning. Non- traditional, experiential, project-based courses were identified as high points for this group. Readings from humanistic perspectives (such as reading poetry about homelessness or learning about racism through literature), had more resonance for them. It was suggested that the innovative Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University host an international gathering for teachers interested in learning about some of these new models.

36 I The EARTH Symposium A Sampling of Letters from Delegates

energy and resources they can toward the project. I truly believe that The EARTH Project claims as its undertaking, unselfishly and without hubris, the fate of the planet. – Diego Maranan, Canada/Philippines

The workshops within which I participated and interacted revealed that the best way to bring together young people is without a doubt through a common project. Here, young people have the chance to conceive, create and especially direct how principles are put into action. In brief, The EARTH Symposium allowed us to draw a portrait of the world for youth…. We have the means, the tools and the force to charge ahead. What remains is to mobilize more youth to strengthen our efforts. Today’s young people have the chance to create their world and not have it made for them. Creativity is our wealth! I hope that there will be other of such calibre in the ecause of this symposium, my relationship to art, future. Let’s become the artists of our own world! my views on my place in society, and my long-term – Felix Joyal-Lacerte, Canada Blife goals have all changed or – perhaps more accurately – been clarified greatly. I had previously toyed As an African, I cannot conceal my delight at having the with the idea of going back to the Philippines – my focus of the conference drawn towards my own country of birth and citizenship – and setting up an art continent, its plight, and the work that we as artists are school...or something vague like that, at least. Now I doing in HIV/AIDS awareness, education, prevention and know that I want to and can use performing arts to work related issues. Everything Mr. Lewis spoke of is the reality with communities in distress to give people tools they that we live, every day in Africa, and the very core of my can wield to empower themselves. passion and commitment to my work. Nothing he said was new to me, yet it touched me deeply. It was not the But The EARTH Project goes beyond this Symposium, content, however, but the effect that content had on those which I think of only as the cornerstone for more around me, which moved me. He spoke with such depth important things to come. I see tremendous value in of understanding and heartfelt humanity that he managed pushing The EARTH Project all along its envisioned path, to turn numbers and statistics and faceless masses into culminating in the proposed International Festival in 2006. utterly real and tangible life, leading the audience to The links that have been established between the truly empathise and grapple with the problems that we participants of the symposium are strong, but tentative, face in Africa. promising, but fragile. The participants have now touched base; now they need to actually start doing work Watching how his words affected the other delegates, collaboratively. Continuity is crucial if the most and experiencing the outpouring of profound emotion substantial outcomes of The EARTH Project are to be and tears allowed me to realise how hardened I, and I realized. Thus I am pleading with anyone who is in a believe we as a nation and continent, have become. Our capacity to help realize this vision, to contribute what people need to be so strong and resilient and resourceful

The EARTH Symposium I 37 just to make it through every day. We need to be so tough to face, and attempt to deal with the problems posed by HIV/AIDS, that I think we sometimes lose sight of how unacceptable it is, how shocking it is to those who do not know, who have not understood, or who have not bothered to find out. I feel that sometimes we are drowning in the problem and our day-to-day attempt to fix it, and in our struggle not to collapse under the enormity of it all, that we forget that the situation shouldn’t be this way, and that there is cause for so much heartache and outrage.

I thank Mr. Lewis for reminding me about the reasons for the fight as opposed to the fight itself, for opening up our African reality to his people, and for caring about the individuals. I could not help feeling that I was witnessing the birth of awareness amongst my North American associates and sensed that I was part of a new trend of interest in African affairs and hopefully sustained action from the North. – Brigid Schutz, South Africa

The aching in my chest was not a heart attack, or building stomach gases. It could not be cured with a check-up I am sorry I have not written before. I was looking for from my doctor or a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. What I felt something or someone to help me translating my ideas. was the ache you feel when you are far from your loved But, here we go. ones. You see, I realized right there that in our short time together, I had come to love all of you and that going I was honoured and pleased to share wonderful moments back to Winnipeg was the last thing that I wanted to do. I with people from all around the world. I really felt like a wanted to jump off the plane and swim to Victoria to visit princess, admired and appreciated. For me, as an everyone there, or fly to the east coast to eat a fish head indigenous woman, it was a real challenge to reach other and get initiated as a Newfie and eat all of your lobsters, people and reveal the knowledge and practices of the or bike to the U.K. and learn about forum theatre or go Quichua, even though I did not speak English. However, down to the States and vote or canoe from Hudson’s Bay we managed to understand each other through the to Nunavut or stay in Vancouver and buy a café mocha to language of heart and art. go and stand on the picket lines dancing and singing and I brought back with me a lot, both in my mind and in my yelling my ass off. heart about other realities and other ways to understand But instead, with tears welling in my eyes, I move away the world. I also changed some misleading images about from a place in which I’ve only spent a brief moment of the way of life in the first world, according to which my life, but that has felt more like home than any place people only eat pills and sandwiches, that were robots ever did. All is not lost, however, because I am returning walking around in the streets. The reality and the images to Winnipeg with something that I have not been able to were contradictory. I found really warm people. There in feel for a while. Hope. After meeting so many Vancouver, people told me that I am beautiful and extraordinary people who were so amazingly passionate intelligent, and, above all, they were eager to hear me, and focused in healing the world we share, I would be while in my own world – in which indigenous and foolish not to have hope for our future. For the first time mestizos are confronted – I have never received these in a long time I am excited to look ahead. I can’t wait to compliments. Those compliments make me stronger back see what everyone will be up to in the days to come and I here in order to tell the same to other indigenous women. look forward to future events that will bring us all back When I am feeling blue, I always think the song that the together to share our triumphs. Inuit sang to me. I keep in my heart Ms. Judith Marcuse. – Lok Lu, Canada I hope that one day I can follow her way with other indigenous women. Thanks a lot for everything. I will always remember you, along with my people. – Ch’aska Eugenia Anka Ninawaman, Peru

38 I The EARTH Symposium Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to many Scotiabank Diana Tang individuals and organizations for Scotiabank Dance Centre Jo-Ann Wood the generous support given to Simon Fraser University School for Dr. Clive Wrigley Breaking New Ground. the Contemporary Arts Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University Undergraduate Semester in Dr. Michael Stephenson, President, Dialogue and Dialogue Programs Simon Fraser University Government Simon Fraser University Continuing Ann Cowan, Executive Director, UNESCO Studies Wosk Centre, Harbour Centre B.C. Arts Council Theatre at U.B.C. Dr. Joanna Ashworth, North Growth British Council TING Foundation Management Director of Programs, Canada Council for the Arts Tsleil-Waututh Nation Continuing Studies Cultural Human Resources Council VanCity Patricia Graca, Coordinator, (CHRC) Vancouver Foundation Dialogue Programs, Continuing Canadian International Vancouver Moving Theatre Studies Program Information Development Agency (CIDA) Vancouver Park Board Carole Knight, Director of Program City of Vancouver Vancouver Symphony Promotion, Continuing Studies Department of Foreign Affairs and Wildfire Restaurant Information and Registration International Trade of Canada YWCA Residence Services, S.F.U. (DFAIT) Department of Canadian Heritage The EARTH Symposium Team The organizers of Breaking New Western Economic Diversification Judith Marcuse, Artistic Producer Ground would like to offer special Canada Lynda Clark, Programming thanks to our team of volunteer Gillian Turner, Symposium writers and their contributions: Corporate, Foundation Coordinator Katy Amon, Taigita Biln, Katrina and Individual Rob Poelvoorde, Projects Manager Blanch, Sabrina Bonfonti, Hilary Dr. Milton K. Wong, Chancellor, Zanita Lukezich, Community Liaison Bourdon, Anna Busch, Angela Chui, Simon Fraser University David Jones, Volunteer Coordinator Lisa Hardin, Brian Geary, Deborah (commission of Shelter) Caitlin Pencarrick, Technical Director Harford, Janet Hudgins, Diana Leung, Jannie Leung, Balqees Capilano Suspension Bridge Diana Bulley, Documentation Mihirig, Marcelina Piowtrwoski, CBC Television Brad Foster, Media Relations Heather Pybus, Susan Read, Lisa Choices Nigel Jones, Financial Manager St. Cyr, Lynn Singh, Zinta Steprans, Christielites Adam Marston, Website Designer Deborah So, Andrea Superstein, Common Ground Judith Marcuse Projects Lucia Terra, Nicole Wright, Christina Commonwealth Foundation Board of Directors van der Kamp, Cory Verbauwhede, Doug Halverson Miles Alperstein Anna Wex and Emily Williamson. Excellent Sushi Sally Douglas Festival Vancouver Yulanda Faris, Honourary Chair Judith Marcuse Projects staff and Glenn Sigurdson Frances Grunberg, Chair members of the Society’s Board of Hamber Foundation Spencer Herbert Directors also wish to express deep Health Sciences Association of B.C. Joyce Preston, Secretary gratitude to each of the 117 Melusine Foundation Barry McKinnon volunteers who helped to make Mongrel Media Tom Sandborn Breaking New Ground possible. Music in the Morning Danny Steinberg Pro Show Sound

The EARTH Symposium I 39 Check Your Head Check Your Head is a Vancouver-based, youth-driven organization Appendices that educates young people on global issues by looking at the connection between global events and issues and local realities. Check Your Head provides education, resources, training and support for youth, who then facilitate workshops, organize events and coordinate projects promoting education and action around Appendix 1: issues of globalization and social justice. The organization also provides a forum where youth can learn about ideas and debate issues like sweatshops, international trade and corporate power Facilitator Biographies and responsibility. www.checkyourhead.org Judith Baca Civic Youth Strategy Judith Baca, prominent muralist and visual artist, has served as Civic Youth Strategy is the youth branch of the City of the Founder and Artistic Director of the Social and Public Art Vancouver’s Social Planning Department. The organization Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, California since 1976. Her enables the youth of Vancouver to share their expertise with City work has focused primarily, though not exclusively, on Los staff in the interest of making Vancouver an environmentally, Angeles and the Southwest to address social justice issues for socially and economically sustainable city that cherishes, ethnic neighbourhoods and the working poor. Ms. Baca is also a nurtures, welcomes and celebrates people of from all Professor of Fine Arts at the University of California, the Vice backgrounds and of all ages. Chair of UCLA’s Cesar Chavez Center and a Professor of Art for www.vancouveryouth.ca World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. www.judybaca.com William Cleveland www.sparcmurals.org/home.html William Cleveland is the founder and director of the Center for the Study of Art and Community in Minneapolis. CSA&C was Dr. Louise Bourgault established in 1991 to build new working relationships between Dr. Louise Bourgault holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the arts and the broader community. Mr. Cleveland has 25 years Ohio University and holds the rank of Professor in the of experience in producing arts programs in educational, Department of Communication and Performance Studies at community and social institutions, and in helping community Northern Michigan University where she has taught for the last organizations, public agencies, schools and arts organizations 20 years. Concerned with the role of media and development, Dr. respond assertively and creatively to increasingly-complex Bourgault has conducted research and worked with the African community needs. His book, Art in Other Places, offers an in- media in 15 African countries. Bourgault’s most recent research depth exploration of twenty-two innovative institutional and involves the use of the performing arts in the struggle against community arts programs in the United States. HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa, but she is also committed to AIDS www.artandcommunity.com activism at her home campus and has organized a number of events designed to raise both funds and awareness in the US of Miali-Elise Coley the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Miali-Elise Coley is half-Jamaican, half-Inuk and was born and raised in Nunavut. In 1996, Miali-Elise became an Assistant Youth Ch’aska Anga Ninawaman Coordinator for Qikiqtani Inuit Association, an organization that Ch’aska Anqa Ninawaman is an indigenous Quechua leader from represents all Inuit of the Baffin Region. She is currently Chair for Chisikata Community, in Cuzco, Peru. Ch’aska holds a Master’s the Inuit Circumpolar Youth Council, which was created to fulfill degree in Social Science with a focus on EthnicShare an international and comprehensive youth strategy. She was methodologies that Quechua, Aymara and Amazonian students also one of 22 Inuit students who successfully fundraised from the University of Cuzco used to investigate indigenous enough money to travel to Guyana to meet with other knowledge in the areas of culture, art, traditional medicine and aboriginal youth groups. indigenous science. Her workshop will concentrate on the methodology used to compile myths, stories, songs and phrases. Fabrizio Crisafulli Ch’aska is also an accomplished poet. Her recent book of poems Fabrizio Crisafulli is a dance-theatre director and visual artist, in Quechua and Spanish is the first book written in Quechua by a based in Rome. Since 1983, he has explored the relationships Quechua individual since the 1960’s. between actors, dancers, space and light. He is the leader of Il Pudore Bene in Vista company, one of the most interesting Italian George Chandler research groups, that focuses its work on body, light and sound George Chandler has been Global Education Coordinator within to represent feelings and emotions. He has produced plays and International Services of the Lower Mainland Canadian Red Cross installations that have been shown world-wide. He holds chairs at since 1996. His current work focuses on building awareness and the Academia di Belle Arti in Florence (scenographic techniques) involvement of people in the Lower Mainland around and at the Faculty of Humanistic Sciences at the University “La international situations and issues – in particular, as part of an Sapienza” in Rome (choreography as knowledge of space). Even Wars Have Limits campaign that focuses on conflict, humanitarian law and related issues of landmines, war-affected David Diamond children and refugees, as well as issues related to the poverty- David Diamond, the Artistic and Managing Director of Headlines disease cycle and natural disasters. A key element in this public Theatre in Vancouver, has directed almost 300 community- engagement work is training and developing youth leaders who specific theatre projects, in Canada and abroad, on issues such as help mobilize and mentor other youth in taking action. He has racism, gender roles, violence, addiction, self-esteem, First worked with Canada World Youth and has a Master’s degree in Nations’ residential schools and language reclamation. Diamond International and Intercultural Management from the School for is an accomplished workshop leader who has also pioneered the International Training in Vermont. development of live, interactive, Forum Television and web- casting. Romi Chandra www.headlinestheatre.com/intro.htm Romi Chandra has been a youth worker in the queer community for nearly five years and has facilitated over five hundred Environmental Youth Alliance workshops to explore sexism, racism and homophobia. Mr. Environmental Youth Alliance (EYA) is an environmental and Chandra started the first Gay/Straight Alliance Group in B.C., and social development organization, which focuses on the he has sat on the board of YouthQuest!, YouthCO AIDS Society stewardship of our physical and social environment. The concept and the Simon Fraser University Public Interest Research Group. of stewardship refers to long-term responsibility and care for our communities, the earth we live with and ultimately ourselves.

40 I The EARTH Symposium EYA is a youth-driven, non-profit agency based in Vancouver and Her work with teens has been featured across the country as well has young people involved in every level of the organization. as at home in the metro-D.C. area. Her choreographic work is www.eya.ca driven by athleticism, physiology and the desire to push boundaries. Femi Folorunso www.danceexchange.org Femi Folorunso is the group coordinator for the Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots in Nigeria. Roots & Shoots is an Nadim Kara environmental and humanitarian network of young people, from Nadim Kara is currently a Child and Youth Social Planner with the the pre-school to university level, who coordinate local projects City of Vancouver’s Social Planning Department. As a graduate of promoting care and concern for the environment, animals, and both the Human Geography and International Relations programs the community. at the University of , Nadim has an interest in social change at the local, national and international level. At the Patti Fraser City, he works to strengthen the social infrastructure supporting Patti Fraser is a story editor for the Education Department at youth in Vancouver and to facilitate meaningful youth Pacific Cinémathèque and has developed and story-edited many involvement in municipal decision-making. Mr. Kara has worked award-winning youth videos. Ms. Fraser has also directed and with Oxfam Canada, the Sustainable Development Research produced videos on a number of community-based projects, and Institute, the Institute of Asian Research, Canada25 and was the co-authored six radio dramas for CBC Network. In 1990-1992, she 2002 winner of the Power of Humanity award from the Canadian worked with Headlines Theatre and received Mosaic’s Human Red Cross. Rights Award for popular theatre work on violence and racism with youth. Sara Kendall www.cinematheque.bc.ca Sara Kendall is a Vancouver-based learner, artist and activist with a penchant for politically-informed art and a passion for Spencer Herbert grassroots mobilization. Amid a constant bend and flux of Spencer Herbert recently helped pressure the local transit projects and personal adventures, she balances youth issues- authority, Translink, to restore night bus service to seven days a based facilitation, international video work, school and week as an organizer for the Bus Riders Union. He has also performance. performed at numerous rallies as the big bad capitalist villain and has recently embarked on an activist street theatre project. In the Gan Siong King past, Spencer has served as DanceArts Vancouver’s Assistant Gan Siong King is a visual artist from Malaysia whose work has Artistic Director and Youth Community Liaison and, with been showcased in exhibitions such as 3 Young Contemporaries, DanceArts, won a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for Exhibit A: A Malaysian Still Life and the J.A.A.L.A. in Korea. Gan Community Contribution. is a founding member of the artist-run collective, Spacekraft, which aims to create an alternative avenue for young artists to Dolly Hopkins manage and run their own activities, exhibitions and workshops. Dolly Hopkins, is the Artistic Director of the Public Dreams Society, which she co-founded in 1985. A native of Vancouver, Josephine Krizovensky she has been a professional performing artist since 1979. Dolly Josephine Krizovensky has studied yoga, meditation and energy Hopkins is a conceptualist and works with many community and healing in North America, Europe and India. She currently professional artists to bring her ideas to fruition. She is currently teaches a variety of classes and leads retreats for yoga students focusing on broadening the scope and reach of Public Dreams, of all levels in the Vancouver area. Her teaching is rooted in the bringing more events to more people. Ms. Hopkins is a strong desire to share the joy of these practices with her students. believer in the importance of the role of art in the community and www.yogamama.org community spirit as both a local and global ideal. www.publicdreams.org John Lazarus John Lazarus is a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and teacher. Shoaib Iqbal He has spent most of his career in Vancouver, where his work Shoaib Iqbal is a leader for Punjab Lok Rahs, an alternative included ICE: beyond cool and other collaborations with Pakistani theatre organization that uses theatre as the medium to DanceArts Vancouver and Judith Marcuse. Presently, he teaches combat military oppression, build cultural awareness and identity at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. His new play, Rough and promote gender equity and democratic values. By way of Magic, will be presented by the Belfry Theatre, Victoria, this classical epics, improvisation, foreign adaptations and street skits, September. the group addresses a broad range of issues, such as child marriage and military dictatorship. Lok Rahs also provides Tony Le Nguyen theatrical training and support to other organizations working for Tony Le Nguyen enjoys a successful career as an actor, writer and social change. director in Vietnam and Australia. He is also the founder and www.lokpunjab.org Artistic Director of Vietnamese Youth Media, which uses theatre, television, photography and performance art to address cross- Adrian Jackson cultural tensions and to cultivate a strong cultural identity for Adrian Jackson is a theatre director and teacher and a frequent Vietnamese youth in Australia. collaborator with Augusto Boal, whose books he translates into home.vicnet.net.au/~vym/About_main.html English. He has worked with a wide variety of communities in the U.K., using the techniques of The Theatre of the Oppressed. He Liz Lerman has also worked and taught in developmental and educational Guest speaker Liz Lerman is one of the world’s leading pioneers contexts in South Africa, Namibia, Mauritius, Ireland, Finland and in the field of dance and community-building and recipient of the . He is the founder-director of Cardboard Citizens, a 2002 MacArthur Fellowship. Ms. Lerman is a gifted teacher, renowned national touring theatre company, whose performers choreographer and performer whose work has redefined where and audiences are predominantly homeless and ex-homeless dance takes place and who can dance. Her commitment is both people and refugees. to the art of dance and to the human element in art-making. In www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk her work, she builds community, encourages personal insight, and choreographs dances that have been called visionary, Elizabeth Johnson profound and revelatory. For more information about Liz Lerman Elizabeth Johnson is a choreographer, dancer and the director of and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, visit the Dance Exchange’s Teen Exchange program. As a company www.danceexchange.org member, Ms. Johnson has collaboratively created dances in communities with Vietnam vets; senior citizens; religious leaders of many faiths; high school teachers; and professional dancers.

The EARTH Symposium I 41 M. Simon Levin was awarded an honourary doctorate by Simon Fraser University. M. Simon Levin has a M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Art and has been www.dancearts.bc.ca teaching, working and collaborating with artists and non-artists www.earthproject.ca alike, for the past fifteen years. He has created several public and environmental art pieces, in Canada, U.S.A., Mexico and Rachel Marcuse Australia, designed to generate a social awareness about the role Rachel Marcuse is a McGill sociology student whose goal in life is and use of public space. He recently co-authored a curriculum on to rid the world of apathy! She works as a facilitator for Youth Public Art with Susan Rome of Vancouver Art Gallery’s Public Net Montreal and freelance. Rachel has been involved in many Programs. youth/arts/social justice projects including coordinating the 2003 Youth Health in Vancouver; sitting on the Quebec Public Stephen Lewis Interest Research Group board; and working for DanceArts Stephen Lewis acted as Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF Vancouver as a researcher, performer and advisor. She is also an from 1995 to 1999 and was also appointed by the Organization of elected Arts representative to the Students’ Society of McGill African Unity to an “International Panel of Eminent Personalities University, where she recently spearheaded a project to to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding implement an ethical purchasing policy for the Society. Events.” Stephen Lewis was named a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest honour for lifetime achievement, in Alex Mavrocordatos January 2003. Currently, Mr. Lewis serves as U.N. Secretary- Alex Mavrocordatos currently serves as the Creative Director of General Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and cdcArts. His interest in the social function of art and its role in recently created the Stephen Lewis Foundation to help ease the development has moved him from his early community theatre pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa. and performance work, through installation/performance art, into www.stephenlewisfoundation.org the participatory process of theatre for development. He has explored these, since the mid-eighties, through extensive projects Madeleine Lyons in West and Southern Africa. As Creative Director, he is Madeleine Lyons is a 1st year Arts student at UBC, hoping to responsible for the coordination of the cdcArts/KAC link with major in political science. At UBC, Madeleine holds positions on the University of Zambia and for the implementation of a the executive boards of the International Relations Student variety of international consultancies and trainer-training Association and World University Service of Canada (WUSC), programmes, including his own work with the Department for which is sending her to , Africa, this summer to study International Development and the British Council in the Pacific, HIV/AIDS. In addition to the Canadian Red Cross, Madeleine and Zambia. volunteers with World Vision Canada, the Africa Awareness www.cdcarts.org/main/front.htm Group and UNICEF, while also acting as the producer and host of a youth radio show. After graduation, Madeleine hopes to pursue Manisha Mehta a career in broadcasting or international development work. Manisha Mehta was trained in part at the PAN Institute in London, England. Ms. Mehta runs an organization called VIDYA in Mary-Elizabeth Manley Ahmedebad, Gujarat, India that operates primarily in the slum A York Dance Department faculty member since 1974, Professor areas of the city. VIDYA works, in part, to improve the lives of Manley has developed expertise in teaching, research, female children and women using theatre and other animation choreography and production. Published research articles reflect techniques. Ms. Mehta was recently named as one of Gujarat’s her specialization in the areas of pedagogy, dance education in ten “most important” women for her effective and early childhood and creative and modern dance for young life-changing work. people. Most notable are her recent articles published on choreography and dance in Childhood in Canada: Laura Milliken Cultural Images and Contemporary Issues and in The Laura Milliken, from the Chippewas of Kettle and Stoney Point Proceedings of the 2003 Dance and the Child International First Nation in Southern Ontario, is an accomplished producer, Conference: Breaking Boundaries. entrepreneur and writer. Laura co-founded Big Soul Productions www.yorku.ca/finearts/faculty/profs/manley.htm in 1999 and since then has produced more than 30 hours of drama, lifestyle, documentary, music, industrial and corporate Brennan Manoakeesick videos. Most recently, Laura co-created and co-executive Brennan Manoakeesick is of Anishanabe and Cree decent. He has produced Moccasin Flats, a six-part dramatic series set in the spent many years volunteering with numerous First Nations tough Native community of North Central Regina. Moccasin Flats organizations as well as promoting youth empowerment is the first-ever series to be entirely Native-created, controlled, workshops to local First Nations across Manitoba, Ontario, written and acted. Quebec and the Northwest Territories. Most recently, Brennan www.bigsoul.net has been working with the Indigenous Environmental Network and their youth sector in developing strategies to empower youth Robert Morgan by embracing the Environmental Justice movement. He also Robert Morgan, founding Artistic Director of the Children’s Peace recently finished working with the Canada Council for the Arts as Theatre, has helped to establish Canada as one of the world’s the coordinator of the Northern Arts Development Project foremost producers of theatre for young audiences. He has written more than twenty professionally-produced plays, many of Judith Marcuse, LL.D., Artistic Director which have toured nationally and internationally, and he has As one of Canada’s honoured, senior artists, Judith Marcuse has acted in and directed over forty productions. The work of the had a long and distinguished career. Her wide-ranging credits as Peace Theatre is part of a global movement reflected in the a dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and producer include United Nations declaration that 2001-2010 is the decade for the work for dance, theatre, opera, television and film. A current establishment of a culture of peace for the children of the world. project is a quartet of issue-based, large-scale multi-year www.childrenspeacetheatre.org initiatives that are rooted in the sensibilities of teenagers, The ICE Project exploring issues that lead to suicide and The Fire Project Moving Into Dance Mophatong looking at how youth are affected by violence in their lives. The Moving Into Dance Mophatung is a professional organization, EARTH Project is the third of this quartet and is to be followed by which provides interdisciplinary dance training and education to The Air Project, which will explore the stuff of dreams. Her develop creative and skilled dance practitioners, teachers, commitment to the marriage of artistic excellence and social choreographers and performers within a South African socio- relevance and her passion to integrate art into community life are cultural and economic context. The organization founded and at the core of her work in the theatre, the lecture hall, behind and developed Edudance, an interactive teaching tool for school in front of the camera and in her writing. Among her honours, subjects like mathematics and science in primary schools, and she has received Canada’s two major choreographic awards, the history and cultural studies in the senior secondary schools. Chalmers (1976) and the Clifford E. Lee (1978) and in 2000, she www.midance.co.za 42 I The EARTH Symposium Munyaradzi Muzenda Punjab Lok Rahs Munyaradzi Muzenda acts as the coordinator for Africa Speaks, a Punjab Lok Rahs is an alternative Pakistani theatre organization project in Zimbabwe that promotes cultural independence, that uses theatre as the medium to combat military oppression, cultural exchange and a future for the African continent and its build cultural awareness and identity and promote gender equity young people. Through song, dance, art, crafts and writing, Africa and democratic values. By way of classical epics, improvisation, Speaks unites youth and celebrates Africanism for the purpose of foreign adaptations and street skits, the group addresses a broad developing a positive African identity to counteract past and range of issues, such as child marriage and military dictatorship. present injustices. The Lok Rahs also provides theatrical training and support to www.dcafrica.net/africa_speaks.html other organizations working for social change. www.lokpunjab.org Nonhlanhla Grethel Ndima Nonhlanhla Grethel Ndima is a performance artist and member Syed Mizanur Rahman alias Raju Ahmed of INSET, a group which trains educators in rural and urban Syed Mizanur Rahman alias Raju Ahmed holds a Master’s degree schools around South Africa to teach Edudance, which is a in both economics and drama, and serves as the managing programme developed by Moving Into Dance Mophatong. Ms. director of Theatre for Research Education and Empowerment Ndima is also involved in training community youth groups by (TREE) in Bangladesh. TREE Foundation uses theatre and radio to teaching dance and several of the works that she choreographed stimulate, educate and encourage audience members to become were featured at the FNB Vita Dance Umbrella Festival. She actively involved in a number of social and health-related issues. recently facilitated workshops in with Sue Hall for dance www.treefoundation.net pedagogues and students who are studying dance. www.midance.co.za Martha Ramirez Oropeza Martha Ramirez Oropeza is a mural painter, performer and noise creator of indigenous/popular theatre and a researcher into noise is a national Australian youth media arts festival happening ancient Nahuatl manuscripts called codices. She serves as vice- live across the media in October, 2004. In partnership with over director of the Mascarones Theatre Group and as co-founder, eighty media and arts organisations, the festival will profile administrator and designer of the pyramid campus of the Nahuatl young artists and exhibit their works on radio and television, in University in Mexico. Ms. Oropeza also teaches at Nahuatl print and online, forging a contemporary link between artists, University and promotes cultural exchange with faculty and audiences and new art forms. students from American universities. www.noise.net.au www.kalpulli.org/unahuatl/unahuat1.html

Pacific Cinémathèque Alvaro Restrepo Pacific Cinémathèque is a not-for-profit society, based in Alvaro Restrepo is the co-founder and choreographer for Colegio Vancouver, B.C., that is dedicated to the understanding of film del Cuerpo in Cartagena, Colombia. The Colegio del Cuerpo and moving images as art and as a vital means of brings creativity, imagination and education to young people communication. The Education Department of Pacific from the war-torn barrios of Cartagena. The Colegio also offers Cinémathèque offers a range of media education and video youth the opportunity to explore career options in the performing production programs designed for children, youth, educators and arts and a chance to escape the cycle of poverty and oppression community groups. prevalent in Colombia. The Colegio’s young dance company has www.cinematheque.bc.ca/ toured in South America and Europe.

Ali Paul Nicholas Rowe Ali Paul graduated from Simon Fraser University in 2002 with a A graduate of the Australian Ballet School, Nicholas Rowe is B.A. in English and psychology, and currently works in the currently completing his Ph.D. on "The Evolution of Dance in psychological services field. She has been actively involved in Traumatised Communities" through the London Contemporary volunteering with youth for a number of years, most recently for Dance School/University of Kent. He resides in Ramallah, the Global Education program at the Canadian Red Cross. She Occupied West Bank, where he directs an arts development hopes to continue in the field of psychology, while incorporating project in the Palestinian refugee camps. Nicholas Rowe has international development and rehabilitation programs. choreographed for numerous groups across Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East, most recently directing Ramallah John Powell Dance Theatre’s critically acclaimed Access Denied. The author of John Powell, a Kwakwak’wakw, is an accomplished costume, the performing arts manual “Art, During Siege,” he regularly fashion and interior designer. As a certified costume designer, Mr. contributes articles to international magazines, newspapers and Powell has designed for numerous productions in the Vancouver journals. area, such as Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapiscasing and The Passion of Dracula at the Arts Club Theatre. As a fashion Diego Samper designer, John works by commission only on one-of-a-kind, Diego Samper is an artist who works in different media: couture-style garments, of applied Native design. He has also photography, painting, artist books and sculptural installations. hosted and participated in fashion shows throughout the Lower With a life-long interest in natural history and tribal cultures, his Mainland. John teaches genealogy and traditional regalia-making work pivots around a dialogue with the natural world. With 25 on Vancouver Island and regularly instructs youth at various years of experience in nature and ethnographic photography, he regional school boards and friendship centres. John’s newest has completed projects commissioned by the Smithsonian project will be working with a dance and theatre group on a new Institution Press, National Geographic, Planeta Humano and other production at the Banff Centre for the Arts in July 2004. international publishers. www.user.dccnet.com/diegosamper Pun Siu-fai Pun Siu-fai serves as an elected member of the Hong Kong Arts Daniel Sanchez Development Council and is the Education and Outreach Director Daniel Sanchez is a composer, percussionist, teacher, and the of City Contemporary Dance Company in Hong Kong. The founder and Artistic Director of Mitote Orchestra. Mr. Sanchez company is devoted to dance education and aims to develop a has earned several grants and distinctions, such as a prize wider dance audience and nurture young talents in dance granted by the National Program for Artistic Education 2001 for through specialized programs and workshops. Over the past his Mitote Orchestra Project, in Mexico. His works include two years, the company has also performed more than one acoustic and electronic music, as well as specially-written music hundred free shows in schools, housing estates, parks and for ballet, theatre, installations, television and cinema. As a shopping malls. percussionist, he has made several recordings and toured on www.ccdc.com.hk both a national and international level.

The EARTH Symposium I 43 Tom Sandborn nature. Saathi operates on the principle that with the proper Tom Sandborn was born in Alaska and has resided in Vancouver support, every youth has the capacity and potential to bring since 1967. Mr. Sandborn has worked as a childcare worker, about change within him or herself and within his or her gestalt therapist, bus, truck and cab driver, mill worker, janitor, immediate surroundings. fundraiser, event organizer, poet and freelance journalist. He has www.ashanet.org/cleveland/projects/saathi/org.htm been active in social justice struggles since 1962. Sierra Youth Coalition Osman Benh Sankoh Sierra Youth Coalition is a national, youth-driven, and diverse Osmen Benh Sankoh is a peace and human rights activist, the non-profit organization working in Canada. Through grassroots editor of the Concord Times (Freetown), an independent daily action, SYC aims to address globalization, consumption and newspaper in Sierra Leone, and a regular contributor on the climate change through a solutions-based approach of promoting United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, Radio FM-103. He holds education for sustainability, bioregionalism, sustainable a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and sociology, as well as a communities and lifestyle simplicity. The Coalition is the youth diploma in mass communication, and several certificates arm of the Sierra Club of Canada and has been active since 1996. including Conflict Reporting and Writing International News. Mr. www.sierrayouthcoalition.org Sankoh has also worked with Action Aid–Sierra Leone, developing youth programs. Carly Stasko Carly Stasko is a grassroots artist, activist and educator and an Darko Saracevik accomplished lecturer on topics such as media literacy, culture Darko Saracevic is the founder and director of Alter Art in Travnik, jamming, ‘zines, indymedia and globalization. She was a Bosnia and Herzegovina. Alter Art’s aim is to empower young producer for CBC’s counterSpin, a live political debate show, and people in the fields of cultural production and creation, the founder of her own ‘zine uncool. Ms. Stasko co-founded and presentation, training and social interaction. In a society still serves as a facilitator for the Toronto Media Collective, a monthly damaged by the social and economic effects of war, their mission salon for artists and activists to gather and brainstorm projects, is to provide opportunities for young people to fulfil their as well as share resources. She is inspired by the ecology of creative, vocational and social potential; to promote awareness of imagination and the role of play in developing critical and responsiveness to the needs and potential of young people thinking skills. among older generations and statutory institutions; and to build, Anja Susa with their partners, a culturally rich and diverse society for Anja Susa is the co-founder and director of the Torpedo Theatre present and future generations. In everyday life, this means Company in Belgrade, Serbia and also serves as the Executive helping young people to realize their ideas in a safe environment and Artistic Director of Little Theatre Dusko Radovic. Susa is by providing music rehearsal rooms, audio studios, production primarily interested in contemporary drama, particularly the new services, video groups, photo groups, art studios, performing generation of Serbian playwrights. Susa contributes to, and is a arts groups, an Internet club and “The Days of Adolescents” member of, the editing board of two Serbian theatre magazines, annual festival. Ludus and Teatron, and also writes a regular column, Dramaturgy Brandon Saul Informer, for Ludus. Brandon Saul is the Executive Producer of noise, a national youth Severn Cullis Suzuki media arts festival in Australia that exhibits young artists and Severn Cullis Suzuki became actively involved in environmental their work across radio, television, in print and online. He has and social justice work at a very young age. When she was nine held this position since the inception of the media-based festival years old, she founded the Environmental Children’s model in 1998 with the LOUD festival. Since then there have been Organization, some of whose members attended the Earth two more noise 2001 and noise 2003. A lawyer and Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Since that time, Ms. Cullis accountant by training, Brandon combines his passion for Suzuki has established herself as an avid speaker, presenter, contemporary culture with a sound understanding of business television host and writer and recently earned a B.Sc. in ecology and legal practices. and evolutionary biology from Yale University. She continues to www.noise.net.au speak to schools and corporations and at many conferences and Michele Schiess international meetings. She is especially passionate about Michele Schiess is one of three founding members of Sing 4 Life encouraging young people to speak out for their future. in Pretoria, South Africa, an organization concerned with The David Suzuki Foundation changing life’s circumstances through creative mediums, The David Suzuki Foundation works to find ways for society to targeting troubled, addicted youth and those infected and live in balance with the natural world that sustains us. Focusing affected by HIV/AIDS. Their goal is to involve youth in uplifting on four program areas – oceans and sustainable fishing, forests community programs in order to bring meaning, pride and and wild lands, climate change and clean energy and the web of success into their lives. To that end, Sing 4 Life initiates youth- life – the Foundation uses science and education to promote counselling workshops and coordinates performances across solutions that help conserve nature. South Africa, showcasing hidden talent before an international www.davidsuzuki.org audience. Take5 alias Mikeal Frazer Brigid Schutz Take5 alias Mikeal Frazer is a well-known Vancouver graffiti artist Brigid Schutz graduated from the University of the who is also recognized for his unique contributions to the local Witwatersrand, School of Dramatic Art, in Johannesburg, South hip-hop scene. After surviving a devastating accident in 1995, Africa, in 1990, with an honours degree in dramatic art. She Mikeal was left a paraplegic. Unwilling to have his spirits worked with various theatrical organisations until she joined dampened by this accident, he dove into the realm of graffiti art, arepp:Theatre for Life in 1993. Ms. Schutz serves as the Executive DJing and Turntablism, and eventually gained recognition both Producer for arepp, focusing on the use of theatre and puppetry locally and internationally, participating in extensive mural to provide alternative, supplementary life-skills education to all projects, sign painting, and gallery shows. In addition to pursuing the communities in South Africa. his own artistic goals, he also serves as a youth mentor.

Altaf Shaikh Mark Teh Altaf Shaikh founded and currently runs Saathi, a non- Mark Teh is a theatre worker whose work is particularly governmental organization in Mumbai (Bombay), India, that concerned with issues of Malaysian history, youth and seeks to give citizenship rights to street youth, and to offer young empowerment. He is a member of Five Arts Centre, a collective of people the opportunity to grow in an environment which is artists and producers formed in 1984, dedicated to generating supportive, caring, protective, encouraging and participatory in alternative art forms and images in the Malaysian creative

44 I The EARTH Symposium environment. Mark is also a founding member of youth theatre group, Akshen, whose last show Stadium played at the 2002 Contacting The World Festival in Manchester, England. www.emuang.org/FiveArts/

Clayton Thomas-Muller Clayton Thomas-Muller, of Cree descent, is an Oil/Gas Campaign Organizer with the Indigenous Mining Campaign Project. Mr. Thomas-Muller works with tribal communities impacted by oil, gas and coal bed methane development. He also works on climate justice issues for The Indigenous Environmental Network – Indigenous Oil Campaign Project. IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, the health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.

Kimingichi Wabende Kimingichi Wabende works with the People’s Popular Theatre in East Africa. PPT is a community-based group that uses theatre to raise awareness about discrimination on the basis of gender, Joaquin Yabut religion, or disability. The organisation conducts research on Joaquin (Jack) Yabut serves as the Project Coordinator for The traditional cultural art forms and practices, exploring how they Philippine Educational Theatre Association. Founded in 1967, affect gender relations and then working to correct gender PETA is an educational theatre organization composed of artist- imbalances in society through performance art. In addressing teachers who are dedicated to the pursuit of artistically-excellent these issues, PPT uses African artistic modes to strengthen theatre aesthetics and pedagogy toward the empowerment of cultural identity. PPT focuses most of its activities in Kenya. people and society. Their goal is to promote and guide the growth and development of theatre arts in the Philippines and jil p. weaving serve as a coordinating agency for a national association of jil p. weaving has been an artist and cultural worker for twenty- drama groups. five years, during which time she has explored a variety of www.petatheater.com contemporary, non-traditional and community-engaged practices. In her current position as Community Arts Programmer for the Marcus Youssef Vancouver Parks Board, she works city-wide on a variety of issues Marcus Youssef is the Chalmer’s Award winning co-author of including environmental arts, public art and memorials in parks, A Line in the Sand and The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the Axes and consultation for, communication about, and documentation of Evil and a regular contributor of comedy, commentary and of, community arts projects. feature journalism to CBC Radio and magazines and journals www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks across the country. Marcus also spends a good portion of his time working with young people in a variety of arts-based Morton Winston capacities. With Mercedes Baines, he is the co-founder of the Dr. Morton Winston is Professor of Philosophy at the College of schools-based family-history storytelling program, The New Jersey. His areas of specialization include human rights Reclaiming Project. theory and practice, ethics, cognitive science and philosophy of technology. In addition to his academic career, Dr. Winston has Youth Millennium Project pursued a parallel career as a human rights activist with Amnesty The Youth Millennium Project helps youth, ages 10 to 18 years International. He served as a member of AIUSA’s national Board old, understand that they can make a positive change in the of Directors from 1991-1997 and as Chair of the Board from 1995- world by allowing them to develop humanitarian projects that 1997. He was also the Founding Chair of AIUSA’s Business and they then put into action. YMP gets youth in 82 countries to not Economic Relations Group from 1996-2002. In 2003 he was only participate in, but also lead, major change in their elected Honorary Chair of AIUSA. communities, from environmental protection in Taiwan, to educational development in Uganda, to literacy in Guyana. Max Wyman www.ympworld.org Max Wyman is a Vancouver writer and one of Canada’s leading cultural commentators. He was dance, music and drama critic for Michael Zelmer The Vancouver Sun and The Province for over 30 years and is the Michael Zelmer is the Co-Chair and Oxfam Canada author of a number of books on the arts in Canada, among them Representative to the Vancouver Fair Trade Coffee Network. The Dance Canada: An Illustrated History (named as one of the “165 VFTCN is an alliance of individuals, churches, businesses, NGOs, Great Canadian Books of the Century” in 2000) and the biography coffee importers and unions that has been working to increase of ballerina Evelyn Hart. His new book, The Defiant Imagination, the demand and awareness of Fair Trade coffee since 1997. published in March, 2004, is a passionate manifesto asserting the Oxfam Canada is a non-profit, international development central importance of the arts and culture to modern Canada. He organization that supports community programmes in food was for six years a member of the board of the Canada Council security, health, nutrition and democratic development, with an for the Arts and is currently President of the Canadian emphasis on working with women. A founding member of the Commission for UNESCO. For his services to the arts, he was VFTCN, Oxfam Canada became a strong advocate for the rights made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001 and received an of coffee workers with the launch of the "Coffee Wedge" of its honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Simon Fraser University "Make " campaign in 2002. in 2003. www.oxfam.ca

The EARTH Symposium I 45 Mikah Fox is my Native name in Wallahcea, and I’m from the Appendix 2: Exchanges Northern Tutchone clan. I have spent most of my life in the Yukon and throughout my life I have been involved in many councils and committees from Youth Justice Member Yukon (4 years), Yukon Youth Biographies Territorial Youth Council (3 years), R.C.M.P. Advisory Board Member (4years), to name a few. I have worked as an Jordan Gold graduated from Politics and Development Studies at archaeological survey assistant, taking samples of glaciers, Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario and recently completed a counting caribou populations and collecting artifacts of posting in Geneva working on trade and sustainable development ancient peoples. I have also been a part of restorative justice and issues. Mr. Gold currently works with a group called Canada 25 on circle-sentencing. a project that would place Canada as a leader in foreign Joseph Doré resides in Edmonton, Alberta, and acts as the Alberta environmental policy. Mr. Gold also works at Corporate Knights Native Friendship Centres Association’s Youth Executive on the magazine, a corporate responsibility publication of the Globe and Provincial Board of Directors, which addresses youth issues within Mail. the Friendship Centre Movement in Alberta. He is also the Nik Basque from Moncton, New Brunswick, is a student at Mount National Alberta Youth Representative appointed to the National Allison University, and member of the campus Youth Action Association of Friendship Centres Aboriginal Youth Council where Group and environmental group “Blue Green.” She is an avid he is responsible for the national health portfolio. The Friendship organic gardener whose goal is to share and expand her Centre Movement is dedicated to providing services that improve knowledge on how to protect the earth. the quality of life of urban aboriginal peoples, particularly youth.

Meg Shirley, currently in her final year of studying philosophy at Trisha Ogina is originally from Holman, N.W.T. and has been living Mount Allison University, tells us she has spent more time in Cambridge Bay since March 1999. She is 21 years old. Since converting a bus to run on vegetable oil than reading Plato. In the she was about 7 years old, she has been carrying on the summer of 2001, Meg cycled across Canada with the Climate traditional Inuvialuit drum dancing culture. She has also learned Change Caravan, encouraging Canadians to take action on climate some traditional throat singing throughout the past year. She has change by reducing their personal greenhouse gas emissions. She a drum dance group in Cambridge Bay and teaches Inuvialuit takes secret pleasure in whistling the Indiana Jones theme song drum dancing with the help of her mother. on downhills, but has yet to discover the secret to making uphills Sylvia Gibson is 24 years old and lives in Saskatoon, equally as pleasurable. Other projects Meg is currently involved in Saskatchewan, while she studies environmental science at the include the Mount Allison University Sustainable Residence University of Saskatchewan. Though she began ballet training as a Initiative and an environmental education program at the local young girl, improvisational dance has since become her bigger middle school. When not studying, Meg spends her time interest. After studying earth sciences for two years in Calgary, practicing on her brand new 3.5 foot stilts. Alberta, she decided that she wanted some practical experience, Gurneesh Bhandal is a second year student at the University of which resulted in about four years of traveling, volunteering and Waterloo (UW) in the Honours Environment and Business Co-op working odd jobs, mainly in South America and Europe. Her goal Program. She is currently working as the Project Coordinator for is to combine education, arts and environmental sustainability into the University of Waterloo Sustainability Project (UWSP), which is a career. a student-run organization that aims to improve the environmental Laura MacPherson is 25 years old and lives in Stratford, Prince sustainability of the university campus. The mission of UWSP is to Edward Island. She strongly believes that it is possible for a viable increase student biophysical, social, economic and political and sustainable growth-oriented community to exist and flourish awareness of the environment while educating and involving the in Atlantic Canada. During her experience working on organic campus community on issues related to the sustainable farms and various innovative recycling projects in , she development of the campus. UWSP aims to do this primarily by leaned a great deal about maintaining commitment to strengthening the environmental network of UW students, faculty sustainability. While studying for her Bachelor of Environmental and administration. She is also an active volunteer for the South Science she exercised her passion for the natural world by Asian Students Association at UW, which promotes awareness organizing and co-ordinating new and exciting events with the and education of the South Asian cultures, as well as a member of Acadia Environmental Society. These projects included Dump ‘N’ the SASA Dance Team. She was also actively involved in The Run and successfully advocating for Fair Trade coffee on campus. World Issues Group at Notre Dame Secondary School that raised awareness of social justice issues and undertook actions to work Brennan Manoakeesick for positive change through fundraising and educational Brennan Manoakeesick is of Anishanabe and Cree decent. He has campaigns. spent many years volunteering with numerous First Nations organizations as well as promoting youth empowerment Jaime Koebel hails from Lac La Biche, in northern Alberta. She workshops to local First Nations across Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec holds a Bachelor of Arts and is currently working on a Master of and the Northwest Territories. Most recently, Brennan has been Arts. She is a Métis writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. As working with the Indigenous Environmental Network and their well, she is an amateur artist of digitally-enhanced photography. youth sector in developing strategies to empower youth by She has had the opportunity to take several art history courses embracing the Environmental Justice movement. He also recently and one of which was given by Dr. Allan Ryan on his book titled finished working with the Canada Council for the Arts as the The Trickster Shift which covered a wide variety of subjects on coordinator of the Northern Arts Development Project Aboriginal people and art, but most specifically dealt with the aspect of the Trickster. This course has allowed her to participate Odessa Guindon is eighteen years old and comes from Gatineau, in dialogue on Aboriginal artists creating art for the sake of Quebec. She has studied music at the Gatineau Music bringing awareness to the inequities between humanity and Conservatory for five years. She decided to set music aside for a the environment, but also being intertwined ironically with while to concentrate more on her college social science studies. one another. She would like to pursue university studies in journalism and become an international reporter. Odessa also volunteers for la Commission Jeunesse de la Ville de Gatineau, which is an organization inside the city structure that works to improve the life quality of youth. The Commission recommends guidelines on every aspect of youth needs and situations to Gatineau City Council.

46 I The EARTH Symposium Claire Kelly is an eighteen-year-old student who attends R.B. Felix Joyal Lacerte lives in Gatineau, Quebec and is 18 years old. Russell High School in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She currently works Felix is interested in youth and mental health. Since high school, at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People as a teaching assistant he has been involved with the Kids’ Help Phone, for which he is a for at-risk youth between the ages of 10-12. She is also a member spokesperson. He was also a volunteer in training other youth in of Community Action, which is a group of students who build peer counselling. About two years ago, Felix joined La plays and workshops for the community. They take the issues Commission Jeunesse of the City of Gatineau, which focuses on that the community faces and do a short play about the topic to five priorities: youth recognition, leisure and culture, get the audience thinking about them. When the play is done, the transportation, security and employment. Felix is also a member students of Community Action lead group discussions with the of the Gatineau Regional Youth Table, which seeks to facilitate audience. access to services and information and also to represent youth needs on a provincial level. Candace Wilde comes from the Chippewa’s of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation in southwestern Ontario. She 23 years old and Baijayanta Mukhopadhyay is currently co-designing a popular currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. She studied theatre arts for education training programme for youth, to raise awareness of three years at The Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto and the impact of Canadian mining companies on ecosystems and strongly believes that people should go out in the world and indigenous populations abroad, particularly with the work of gather as much knowledge and life experience as they can and Alcan in eastern India. In addition to her work in community then return to their home community to share their new-found theatre, Baijayanta does a fair amount of writing, usually related knowledge. Candace teaches theatre, dance, storytelling and to social/political issues. creative writing, giving people the freedom to express themselves in a safe environment, which is key to a growing, Isabelle LeVert-Chiasson is 22 years old and lives in Halifax, Nova healthy community. Scotia. She is of Acadian descent and her first language is French. Isabelle is currently writing her honours thesis in Miali-Elise Coley is 22 years old, half-Jamaican, half-Inuk, born International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University on and raised in the northern territory of Nunavut. The capital, the use of art and performance art as a tool of conflict resolution, Iqaluit, once called Frobisher Bay, is her hometown where she using case studies in Sri Lanka derived from some of the lives with her family. Miali-Elise has always been very active in research she conducted there last year. her community. Starting in 1996, she became an Assistant Youth Coordinator for Qikiqtani Inuit Association, the organization that Donald Humphrey is a 4th year undergraduate student from represents all Inuit of the Baffin Region. Throughout this time, Newfoundland and is currently completing his final semester of she also led her high school student council as the president an environmental science degree with honours at MUN’s Corner and became a strong advocate for giving youth the attention Brook Campus, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College. Donald has been they deserve. involved with environmental issues for several years and most of his conservation efforts have been by conducting research. Last Alex Goss currently resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia and is summer, he conducted research with a Master’s student from 23 years old. Alex has taught environmental art courses with Acadia University on dragonfly movement in Gros Morne the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Ontario. These classes involved National Park, a UNESCO world heritage site. Donald has also children aged 6-13 creating environmentally-friendly art, conducted research with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans taking hikes, expressing feelings about nature and examining on maintaining salmon stocks in Newfoundland. people’s place in the environment. It was through this experience, that Alex realized the power of art in shaping beliefs and Coralee Johns is a Ta’ an Kwach’an Youth of the Yukon. Coralee expressing concerns. Alex is a member of the Ecology Action is 21 years old and currently attends Yukon College. During the Centre in Halifax. summer of 2003, Coralee worked with her band as a Lands and Resources Assistant with the Yukon Heritage Association. They Megan N. Jackman is an 18-year-old resident of Newfoundland surveyed on band land, worked with G.P.S., re-did the band’s and Labrador and is currently a first-year student at Memorial filing systems and also patrolled the Thirty Mile River for clean- University, Sir Wilfred Grenfell Campus. Megan has been ups, and provided guidance for tourists. She is now on the involved with and interested in science, particularly Heritage committee and Board of Directors for her band. She environmental and biomedical science, for some time. She won plans to start the Renewable Resources Management Program at the NLSLT Biomedical Award for a project that she worked on N.A.I.T. in Edmonton, Alberta, in the fall of 2005. studying cancer. Megan was also the first youth, along with her friend, to ask for and gain, representation for young people on the Economic Development Committee in her community. Megan was also a junior leader with Beavers of Canada and helped to organize environmental projects such as cleanups and forest restoration.

Adriane Enns is a young woman from the Arctic who is passionate about sharing her love for cultural growth as a tool for developing the community. She has been working with this love for about five years now in a variety of ways within the realms of storytelling, music, community art installations and multimedia. Her current art project is called Catalyst Collective, which exists as a tool that young artists can use to join forces in a spirit of forging new paths toward creatively-nourishing employment in the community.

Photos of delegates have been taken by other delegates with cameras generously provided by the Vancouver Parks Board.

Design by Corporate Graphics, Vancouver.

The EARTH Symposium I 47 Canadian International Agence canadienne de Development Agency développement international

Produced by Judith Marcuse Projects Judith Marcuse, LL.D., Artistic Producer

Judith Marcuse Projects (Formerly DanceArts Vancouver Society) Scotiabank Dance Centre 7th floor - 677 Davie Street Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6B 2G6 Phone: 604-606-6425 Fax: 604-606-6432 E-mail: [email protected] www.dancearts.bc.ca www.earthproject.ca